Feb 04, 2026
3 min read
"She was laying there lifeless," said Melissa Melinder, whose daughter thought the GLP-1 would help her stomach pain.
Indiana 7-year-old daughter hospitalized after spraying herself with GLP-1, mother: 'She hasn't eaten in 6 days'
Must know
An Indiana girl was hospitalized after taking GLP-1 from her mother
Jessa Millender, now 8 year old, injected up with 60% of her mother's medication, thinking that it relieved her stomach pain.
Doctors were concerned about kidney failure, his mother, Melissa Milender, tells WHAS-11
A seven-year-old Indiana girl spent days in hospital after her mother overdosed on the drug GLP-1, lying "lifeless" as her family feared for her life.
"I thought it was stomach medicine," Jessa Milender, now 8, told WHAS-11 about the December 2024 incident when she self-administered a 60%-filled GLP-1 pen."My mom takes it and I thought it helped her stomach pain."
Her mother, Melissa, immediately discovered her daughter. The poison center was later called - a quick action that might have saved her life.As Too Much Health explains, overdose symptoms include nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain - side effects commonly associated with GLP-1 drugs.Melissa takes Jessa to the ER, where she is put on an IV.At that time, his symptoms were dehydration and vomiting.
"I don't think we were prepared for how bad it was going to be," Melissa said.After Jessa's symptoms resolved, she was discharged - but the vomiting returned as soon as she got home.
Melissa says she had to take Jess to the bathroom because she was so weak."She was thirsty. She thought a drink of water would suffice, but she threw it away."
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They returned to the hospital, where her mother said she had stopped urinating, and doctors feared kidney failure.Melissa told the outlet that she was "100%" concerned for her daughter's life.
"She didn't eat for six days straight," she says, adding that at one point the family "gathered around her, because she was just lying there, lifeless."
Melissa told the outlet that she now keeps the medication in a locked box, bought the day Jessa overdosed.Although she is now fully recovered, Melissa shared that she hopes that sharing their ordeal can help other parents avoid a similar crisis.
He said: "I try not to think about what if. God protected us from the worst and I'm sure of that. I think it could have been worse."
Read the original article on People
