Reading the site heat map

What the map records

The body map has 14 spots: right and left shoulder, upper right and upper left abdomen, right and left abdomen, right and left thigh on the front, and the back of each arm, each flank and each glute on the back. Left and right always mean your own side, so on the front view your right side appears on the left of the screen, as in a mirror; on the back view your left side is on the left.

The map offers more spots than any single label lists. The GLP-1 labels name the abdomen, the thigh and the upper arm, and the Mounjaro® label says the back of the upper arm is injected by another person ^[1][2][3]. Use only the areas your product’s label and your clinician name.

Logging the site

• From a vial on Track: the dose sheet has an optional Site row. Tap it to open the body map (“Where did you inject?”) with Front and Back, or tap Use to accept the suggestion described below.
• From Dose History: the Log past dose and Edit dose forms have an Application site row that starts at No site and opens the map in place.
• Where spots sit close together, such as the four on the abdomen, tapping opens a zoomed Pick a spot view so each one is easy to hit.
• No site is a valid choice, for example for tablets or a dose you cannot place. It is counted as unrecorded rather than guessed, and you can add or change the site later by editing the dose in history.

Where the suggested site comes from

Until you choose a spot on the dose sheet, the Site row shows a hint such as “Suggested: Left thigh”. The rule uses your own records and nothing else: it takes the spots you logged in the last 30 days, adds the left or right partner of each, and offers the one you have gone longest without. It does not offer the spot you used last while there is another candidate. With no site logged in the last 30 days, it starts from the right and left abdomen.

Nothing is saved until you tap Use or pick a spot yourself; leaving the row as Not chosen is fine. The hint cannot know which areas your label lists, how a spot looks or feels, or what your clinician told you. If your own rotation includes the back of an arm, for example, remember that the Mounjaro® label describes that area as one another person injects ^[1].

The card on Today

The Application Site card shows small front and back figures for the last 7 days. Next to them it names the site of your latest dose, how long ago it was and the compound and amount. If that dose had no site, the card says Site not recorded and adds the most recent site you did record, for example “Last: Left abdomen”. The last-used spot is circled with a ring in your theme’s colour.

It is a rolling view of the past seven days, not a calendar week. Tap the card to open the full Application Sites screen.

Reading the weekly map

Application Sites shows one calendar week at a time, with the dates at the top and arrows for the previous and next week; the next arrow stops at the current week. The map opens on the side of the last site you used, and you can switch between Front and Back. Under the map, the week’s site-logged doses are listed with the site, the compound and amount, the day and the time.

Larger marks were used more often, but the sizes are relative: the spot you used most that week gets the largest mark, and the others are scaled against it. Skipped doses are not counted, and a week with no site-logged doses says No injections logged this week.

Each spot is an area, not a point. MedlinePlus advises moving at least about an inch (2.5 cm) from one injection to the next ^[4], and two marks on Left abdomen may be different points within that area. The map cannot measure that distance; it only records which area you chose.

Filling the gaps

If some doses that week had no site, the screen says how many, for example “2 doses this week without a recorded site”. Those doses are left off the map rather than placed somewhere by guesswork.

If you remember where they went, edit the doses in history and add the site. A map with gaps is still honest; a map with invented sites is not.

What the labels ask

The Mounjaro® and Wegovy® labels ask for the injection site to be rotated with each dose ^[1][3]. The Ozempic® label puts it per week: staying in one body region is fine as long as the spot changes each week ^[2]. A weekly map is a direct way to see whether that is happening.

MedlinePlus adds that the skin at an injection site should be healthy, with no redness, swelling, scarring or bruising ^[4]. The map cannot tell you whether a spot is ready to be used again or whether skin looks right. Those are questions for your clinician, especially if an area is sore, hard or changed.

If you also inject insulin

The Ozempic® and Mounjaro® labels say that when either is used with insulin, the two are given as separate injections and never mixed; the same body region is acceptable, but the injections should not be next to each other ^[1][2].

Insulin labels also explain why a site record can matter beyond comfort. The NovoLog® label asks you to move from spot to spot inside a region to lower the chance of lipodystrophy and localized cutaneous amyloidosis, and describes lipoatrophy as a dip in the skin and lipohypertrophy as an enlargement or thickening of tissue. It warns that repeated injections into such areas have been reported to raise blood sugar, while a sudden switch to an unaffected area has been reported to lower it, and that a change of injection site belongs under close medical supervision ^[5]. A dated record of which spots you used gives your clinician something concrete to look at.

Noting a skin reaction

Skin reactions are listed in the labels. In the pooled placebo-controlled adult trials described in the Mounjaro® label, injection site reactions were reported in 3.2% of people on the medicine and 0.4% on placebo ^[1]. MedlinePlus expects some soreness at the spot and asks you to contact your provider about infection signs ^[4].

If a spot reacts, log it in the side-effect log, which includes injection-site reaction among its symptoms with an overall severity, and link it to a dose from the 72 hours before if you like; the site saved with that dose then shows which spot it was. The Log dose form also has Notes and a Pain level from 0 to 10 under More options. PepLabo does not choose sites for you, draw conclusions or judge what you log; it shows the pattern you recorded.

Mounjaro® is a registered trademark of Eli Lilly and Company. Ozempic®, Wegovy® and NovoLog® are registered trademarks of Novo Nordisk A/S. PepLabo is not affiliated with or endorsed by Eli Lilly and Company or Novo Nordisk.

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