Brand · liraglutide
Saxenda
Last reviewed · Written by the PepCycle team
Saxenda is the brand name for liraglutide licensed for weight management. Unlike semaglutide and tirzepatide products, it is injected daily rather than weekly, because liraglutide has a much shorter half-life. Victoza is the same ingredient licensed for type 2 diabetes.
What Saxenda is
Liraglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, an earlier generation than semaglutide, with a half-life of roughly half a day rather than a week. Saxenda is liraglutide licensed for weight management; Victoza is the same molecule licensed for type 2 diabetes. Both are delivered by multi-dose dial pen.
Its shorter half-life is the reason for daily administration, and it changes everything about the record you keep.
Why a daily schedule needs a different record
Weekly and daily medicines fail in opposite ways, and a tracker designed for one handles the other badly.
| Weekly (semaglutide, tirzepatide) | Daily (liraglutide) | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical failure | Silent drift of injection day | Occasional missed days |
| What the log must surface | The real interval between injections | Adherence rate over a period |
| Reminder that works | One weekly, well ahead | One daily, at a consistent time |
| What a gap means | Significant — investigate | Depends on frequency and pattern |
A daily log's value is the rate, not the individual entry. Ten missed days scattered across a month tells a different story from ten consecutive ones, and only a properly dated record can distinguish them.
The pen and what to record
- Pen identity and first-use date. A multi-dose pen has an in-use window separate from the printed expiry, and with daily use the pen turns over quickly.
- The dial setting as instructed, recorded per injection during titration.
- Injection time, which for a daily medicine is one of the few variables actually under your control.
- Site rotation — daily injections make rotation more consequential than weekly ones simply through volume of injections.
What a useful Saxenda record contains
- Every day marked as taken, skipped or late — never left blank and inferred.
- Pen first-use and discard dates.
- Titration changes as dated events.
- Side effects with timestamps; with a daily medicine the temporal relationship is easier to see, provided the record exists.
- Weight or other measures on a fixed cadence.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Saxenda injected daily when Wegovy is weekly?
Because liraglutide has a much shorter half-life than semaglutide — roughly half a day rather than about a week. The dosing interval follows the pharmacokinetics of the molecule.
What is the difference between Saxenda and Victoza?
Both contain liraglutide from Novo Nordisk. Saxenda is licensed for weight management and Victoza for type 2 diabetes, with different approved strengths. They are separate products.
How should I record a missed day?
Explicitly, as a skipped entry with the date — not as a blank. A blank is ambiguous between 'skipped' and 'forgot to log', and that ambiguity makes an adherence rate meaningless.
Does site rotation matter more with a daily injection?
You are simply making many more injections over the same period, so recording which areas you have used recently is more practical than trying to remember. See our guide to injection site rotation for how to structure it.
Related pages
Keep a Saxenda record your prescriber can read
Log every injection with its real date and time, mark late and missed entries instead of hiding them, record side effects alongside dose changes, and export the whole timeline before an appointment.
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