A mother nearly died in front of her daughter after injecting herself with a “counterfeit skinny jab” she bought online.
Doctors told Michelle Sword she was lucky to be alive after self-administering a “dangerous” weight-loss pen.
Ms Sword, from Carterton, Oxfordshire, said she previously tried the drug “legitimately” via an online pharmacy three years earlier – but decided to try it again in a bid to shed more pounds.
The family of drugs known as GLP-1 RAs, originally developed to treat diabetes, are now often used for weight loss as they suppress patients’ appetite.
The 45-year-old receptionist was able to purchase the drug “very easily” online but collapsed in front of her daughter in September after her blood sugars dropped to dangerous levels.
Ms Sword, who is mother to Coen, 18, and Cadie, 13, began feeling disorientated 15 minutes after injecting the drug before losing consciousness.
Cadie phoned Ms Sword’s best friend who then called an ambulance.
After being taken to hospital, doctors told her they had never seen someone survive a blood sugar level that low in their careers.
She now says she feels ‘ashamed’ of taking the risk and has apologised to her children – while warning others not to “gamble with their lives”.
Ms Sword said: “When the jab arrived, it looked the same as before except the dial was different. Usually on a weight-loss pen, the click stops for you at 1ml and you take 1ml. I was turning the clicker and it wasn’t stopping.”
“I must’ve turned it 17 or 18 times and I thought if I need more I’ll take it. I took some and thought ‘I’ll take some more later’.”
“I was getting my daughter’s tea ready when 15 minutes or so later I started to feel strange.”
“My daughter Cadie said at this point I was mumbling and my eyes looked different. She said I was slumped over, wide-eyed and unresponsive. I didn’t know what was going on. She phoned my best friend who lives a few minutes away. She came round and straight away thought this was incredibly serious.”
“She rang the ambulance and they were with me within 12 minutes.”
Ms Sword suffered a seizure in the ambulance and believes she took an insulin overdose from the “counterfeit” jab.
She added: “I’m incredibly embarrassed I put myself in that situation. Nothing is worth losing your life over.”