Know what needs a closer look

When urgent help comes first

A severe allergic reaction may start quickly; signs include a swollen face or tongue, difficulty swallowing, or trouble breathing.

Call 911 for emergency help, or head directly to the closest emergency room.

This urgent-help advice comes from MedlinePlus and was checked as of September 2026.

Compare cautions as well as benefits

The FDA is the United States drug agency. Its medicine labels describe reasons a treatment may not fit a person.

Weight-treatment trials of semaglutide, tirzepatide and liraglutide report common stomach and bowel side effects.

These include feeling sick, throwing up, loose stools and trouble passing stools.

The semaglutide (Wegovy) label flags severe or lasting belly pain, sometimes felt in the back, as a possible serious side effect.

The small body part called the thyroid sits in your neck.

A boxed warning is the FDA’s strongest warning type; the semaglutide, tirzepatide and liraglutide labels use it to warn about thyroid tumours, or growths.

The tumours in these warnings were found in rodents.

Rats and mice are rodents; whether the drugs cause these tumours in humans is still unknown.

As of September 2026, those labels rule treatment out if you or your family have had the rare cancer named “medullary thyroid cancer”.

The labels also rule out treatment for MEN 2, a rare illness that can pass from parent to child.

Its full name in medical records is “Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia syndrome type 2”.

That name describes an illness involving growths in hormone-making parts of the body.

Hormones are messages the body makes.

If you know of a family cancer or rare illness but not its name, ask the prescriber to help check the records for these names.

A serious allergy to the medicine or its ingredients also rules treatment out.

Check the person and the pharmacy separately

A health professional with authority to order prescription medicine is called a prescriber.

State medical boards list doctors’ licences and public disciplinary actions, meaning penalties recorded by the board.

A clean public record cannot show the quality of the care.

State pharmacy boards provide a separate licence check for the pharmacy.

FDA guidance checked as of September 2026 says to avoid an online pharmacy whose licence cannot be found in the state-board records.

The licence record shows permission to operate. It does not prove how well prescriptions are filled.

Pause at claims that do not add up

As of September 2026, selling prescription medicines without requiring a prescription is illegal under federal law.

Calling a compounded medicine FDA-approved is misleading, because compounded medicines do not have FDA approval.

FDA registration is not FDA approval of a product, and the FDA does not approve care providers.

FDA advice checked as of September 2026 says not to use a GLP-1 shot that arrives warm. The same warning applies if the delivery did not keep it cold enough.

Ask the prescriber or dispensing pharmacy what happens next when a delivery raises that concern.