Mounjaro is tirzepatide, given as an injection once a week. Its licensed use is where it differs from most of the medicines it gets grouped with: it is licensed for type 2 diabetes, and in some markets for weight management as well. Two people can therefore arrive at the same tracking question from genuinely different starting points, with different clinicians, different review appointments, and different things worth writing down.

So the first step in setting up a record is not choosing a format. It is being clear about why this medicine was prescribed to you, which is on your prescription and in the patient information leaflet in your box. GOV.UK makes the general version of this point for the whole class: these medicines differ in how they are used, and the instructions that apply are the ones given for your specific product. A record built on an assumption about which of the two conversations you are in will collect the wrong things.

The part every record holds

Whatever the reason for the prescription, some lines are the same, because they describe the medicine rather than the indication.

  • The date each injection actually happened
  • The general site used, and when a new box or pen was opened
  • Anything that shifted a planned date, with a one-line reason
  • Symptoms noticed, with dates and roughly how long they lasted

MedlinePlus describes tirzepatide injection and lists gastrointestinal effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and constipation among those that may occur, which is why a symptom line is worth having ready rather than added later after something has already been forgotten. Keeping these four lines takes under a minute a week and they are the ones that hold up best over months.

If it was prescribed for type 2 diabetes

Then the record has a job that predates this medicine, and the medicine joins it. Whatever monitoring routine you have agreed with your care team continues unchanged, and the injection dates simply need to live on the same timeline as those readings so that a question about both can be answered from one place. Nothing here suggests changing how often you monitor, and no targets or ranges appear on this page, because those belong to the people reviewing your diabetes with you.

Two additions are worth making explicitly. First, note any episode where you felt unwell in a way you associate with your blood sugar, with the date and what you did, because those are hard to describe accurately from memory. Second, keep the list of your other diabetes medicines current in the same record, since changes there are often what a review conversation actually turns on.

If it was prescribed for weight management

Then the record's second half is measurements, and the discipline is consistency rather than frequency. NICE has published guidance on tirzepatide for managing overweight and obesity, which sets out the pathway this sits in for readers in England, and services following it will have their own review points. A record that arrives at those reviews with consistent readings taken the same way is more useful than one with far more numbers taken in inconsistent conditions.

  • A dated starting weight, recorded once, that later readings are compared against
  • Readings at a fixed cadence, in similar conditions each time
  • Simple body measurements every few weeks rather than every week
  • Notes on appetite, fullness, and anything practical that has changed

This page states no expected pace, amount, or pattern of change, and deliberately gives you nothing to measure yourself against except your own earlier entries. What the record is for is describing what happened, accurately enough that a clinician can see it clearly and you do not have to reconstruct months from memory.

The medicines list, in both cases

FDA advises keeping an up-to-date list of every medicine and supplement you take and bringing it to appointments. This is the most commonly skipped and most consistently useful part of any medicine record, and it takes longer to reconstruct at a review than it does to maintain. Dating each change to the list is what makes it worth keeping: a clinician can then see not only what you take now but when it started, which is often the question behind the question.

Supply belongs in the same place. Because the injection is an occasional event rather than something you handle constantly, it is easy to lose track of how much is left until a repeat prescription becomes urgent. A line recording when each new box was opened, and when the prescription behind it was issued, gives you enough warning without needing a separate system to maintain.

Reviewing what you have collected

A record is worth reading occasionally, not only writing. Once a month, a few minutes spent looking at the whole thing rather than the latest entry tends to surface what a single week hides: dates drifting gradually, symptoms clustering in a way you had not registered, or a supply gap approaching. That reading is also the point at which to write down the questions you want to ask at your next appointment, while the detail is still fresh enough to be specific.

What the record will not do is tell you whether treatment is working, explain why something happened, or answer a question about a missed or delayed injection. Those go to your leaflet, prescriber, or pharmacist. And symptoms that are severe or worsening quickly — persistent abdominal pain, vomiting that stops you keeping fluids down, or signs of a severe allergic reaction — need medical help promptly rather than an entry to review later.