With Christmas just days away, medical staff wheeled 7-year-old Jessa Milender through the hospital halls. The usually lively and cheerful child was now limp and face down on a medical gurney. She was admitted to the hospital after taking an overdose of her mother’s prescription GLP-1 medication.
“She was unable to walk due to exhaustion and severe pain,” Melissa Milender said. “She wouldn’t even let them touch her belly. She would scream in pain in her sleep. It was horrific.”
Poison centers nationwide are seeing a spike in complaints about people taking too much GLP-1 medication. Research shows that an increase in the number of patients taking Ozempic, Mounjaro and other similar drugs has led to an increase in overdose reports.
The Indiana Poison Center told 13 Investigates that the number of calls it received doubled from 2024 to 2025, with 320 calls received in 2025. Local poison centers said most of the calls were about adult women, although a handful involved children and teenagers.
Doctors told 13 Investigates that most people can manage symptoms at home. However, some end up in the hospital, like Jessa.
GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist. These drugs artificially produce hormones that the body naturally produces. This is good for people with diabetes because it allows their bodies to produce more insulin, allowing them to better control their blood sugar.
These medications can also reduce hunger and make you feel fuller for longer in some people, which can help with weight loss.
There are several versions of GLP-1 currently in use, including semaglutide and tezeparatide, the active drugs under popular brand names such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.
Jessa’s mother told “13 Investigates” that in December 2024, Jessa was admitted to the hospital twice within a week.
The family shared photos of Jessa looking pale, exhausted and in pain, with an IV attached.
“I don’t think we were prepared for how bad it was going to get,” Melissa said.
Medical records show Jessa found her mother in Monzaro around December 16, 2024. Melissa said she immediately called the poison control center when she learned the girl had injected herself with the drug. Melissa followed instructions to keep her child home and hydrated. She was told to expect Jessa to experience symptoms including vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea.
A few hours after Jessa was given the injection, she started vomiting.
“We didn’t expect it to be this serious,” Melissa said. “She would drink water and then spit it right back out… I thought, ‘How is she going to stay hydrated when she can’t really hold anything down?'”
Jessa’s mother said she would constantly vomit.
“Seeing your child get sick, even a regular patient, you want to be able to take it away,” Melissa said. “But seeing them being sick for so long, it feels like no one really knows how to help. It’s a desperate, helpless situation and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
Records show Jessa was rushed overnight to Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center on December 18, not far from the family’s home in San Bernardino, California. That was a few days after the girl took the medication. She received medication and an IV and went home the next day.
“They were on the verge of whether or not they should release us,” Melissa said. “I shouldn’t have let them release her.”
Jessa had a night’s rest. Then the vomiting returned the next day. Melissa remembers her daughter being thirsty but unable to hold down water. Jessa was so weak that her mother had to carry her to the bathroom.
Medical records show that Jessa’s parents reported that she vomited 10 to 15 times a day. So, back at the hospital, the doctor admitted her again, with medical records showing “fear of kidney closure.” Jessa had stopped urinating, and doctors were worried about the health of her kidneys.
Melissa said Jessa once vomited “brown lumps,” which doctors said could have been the girl’s stomach lining. The family reported that around this time, they began to fear for Jessa’s life.
“On Saturday night, our family gathered around her because she was just lying there, lifeless,” Melissa said.
After two more days in the hospital, doctors said Jessa was well enough to go home on December 23, two days before Christmas. She made a full recovery.
Doctors say overdose symptoms usually last about a week because that’s how long the drug stays in the body. Millions of people have now taken GLP-1, and calls to poison centers are increasing.
The National Poison Data System of U.S. Poison Centers reports that calls for GLP-1 overdoses and side effects have increased by nearly 1,500% since 2019.
Indiana poison centers report that the number of calls they received has doubled in the last year. In 2022, the center reported receiving 64 calls and in 2025, it received 320 calls. The center told 13 Investigates that 76 percent involved women, with the majority due to accidental dosing errors. The majority (73%) did not result in the patient needing to travel to a medical facility for care.
Dr. Mary Wermuth is a toxicologist at Indiana University Health. She said there may be more unreported cases, especially because people may call their doctors or simply manage their symptoms at home.
While drug overdose cases have increased, there have been fewer calls involving children like Jessa.
“The common dosing errors we see are too frequent, inaccurate, or too high a dose,” she said.
Wermuth says some people take it so often that they forget it’s a weekly drug.
She said other patients thought eating more might help them lose weight faster.
“Too many things are not always a good thing,” said Dr. Ethan Bloch-Smith of Indiana University’s Center for Healthy Fishermen.
However, both Wormuth and Bloch-Smith agree that most people who overdose do so accidentally. Errors are more likely to occur with compounded medications because they may contain multiple doses in a vial, requiring the patient to measure out the correct dose. Many brand-name medications now come prefilled.
Overdose symptoms include nausea, vomiting, and other gastrointestinal problems. A severe reaction may lead to dehydration and pancreatitis, which may result in your hospitalization.
“Just because it’s thought to be useful for weight loss, even though there are other indications – diabetes, etc., that doesn’t make it any less toxic if it’s not taken properly,” Warmus said.
“The drug is slowly being released,” Bloch-Smith said. “What that means is that the moment you inject it, you’re committed to getting results for those weeks, whether they’re positive or negative. You get what you get.”
To avoid overdose, medical experts recommend that people read the instructions carefully and ask a pharmacist to show them how to take it correctly.
They also encourage purchasing medications only from reputable sources. Doctors warn that fake medicines can be dangerous because they are not regulated.
As for children, they advise patients to put their medications in a lockbox.
Melissa now has a compounded version of her tilsiparatide.
Doctors say lock boxes are key to keeping curious children and teenagers from getting access to these drugs.
“I got it the day she overdosed,” Melissa said. “It was on Amazon for $20 and it’s been sitting in my refrigerator ever since.”
Back in 2024, she decided that placing medications higher in the refrigerator was enough. She’s still surprised that Jessa decided to inject herself with the drug.
“I thought it was stomach medicine,” Jessa said, “because my mom takes it and I thought it would help her stomach pain.”
“She saw her dad give me the first few shots,” Melissa said. “It goes into your stomach…but I never explained to her what I was doing…trying to get healthier.”
Jessa takes about 60 percent of her mother’s medications. The family is glad the girl did not take the full dose.
“I try not to think about ‘what if,'” Melissa said. “God protects us from the worst, I firmly believe that.”
Her parents now hope her story will protect other children.