GLP-1 injection sites and rotation
The abdomen, the front of the thigh, or the back of the upper arm, rotated with each dose. That is what the Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound labels specify. Those labels also report that pharmacokinetics did not differ meaningfully between the three sites, so the choice is about comfort and tissue health, not about how well the medication works.
The three sites
- Abdomen — the most used, avoiding roughly a 5 cm radius around the navel. Plenty of surface area, which makes real rotation easy.
- Front or outer thigh — easy to reach and see. Often preferred for self-injection.
- Back of the upper arm — awkward to self-administer well; simpler with help.
How to rotate
Rotation means moving to genuinely different tissue, not shifting a centimetre. A practical approach is quadrants: divide the abdomen into four, use one quadrant per week, and move within it between cycles so no single spot repeats for a month. Injecting into skin that is bruised, tender, hard, scarred or lumpy should be avoided until it recovers.
The failure mode is not the plan, it is the memory. After a few months nobody reliably recalls where the last four shots went, so people drift back to one comfortable spot without noticing.
Sources
Let the app remember
Bo has a tap-anywhere body map: mark exactly where each shot went and it shows a recency heatmap, so the next site is obvious instead of guessed.
Educational information only. Bo is a tracking app, not a medical device, and nothing here is medical advice, a dosing recommendation, or a substitute for your prescriber. Half-lives are population averages from the sources cited on each row; individual clearance varies with body weight, kidney and liver function, and other medication.