During the two months Carey Yazeed took Ozempic, the drug worked as intended. Yazeed has her type 2 diabetes and weekly injections have brought her blood sugar down. However, she also had side effects that she considered intolerable, including vomiting, fatigue, headaches, and stomach cramps.
Yazid said he was stuck on the bathroom floor five weeks after taking the drug.
“I was vomiting so much that I didn’t have the strength to get up and was basically lying in it,” she said. “I couldn’t even lift my head to vomit in the chest of drawers. It was so bad.”
Although the severe effects faced by Yazeed are uncommon, the experience of people taking Ozempic and its sister drug Wegovy has been extensive, ranging from significant weight loss and minimal discomfort at one end of the spectrum to extreme effects. Very different. the other.
NBC News spoke to 10 people about their experiences taking these blockbuster drugs, a type of semaglutide. They are designed to mimic the hormone that triggers the release of insulin, a hormone that signals the brain when a person is full and stops blood sugar from getting too high. can reduce appetite.
The drug’s popularity skyrocketed over the past year, thanks in part to social media attention and billionaires like Elon Musk touting the drug’s weight-loss benefits.
Ozempic prescriptions tripled from 2021 to 2022, according to data from SingleCare, a prescription drug discounter with more than 5 million members. Last year, high demand and global supply constraints led to shortages of medicines. The FDA reported a Wegovy shortage in March 2022, followed by an Ozempic shortage in August.
Several people interviewed said the benefits they got from the drug outweighed the side effects.
“I feel lighter to move around in. My clothes fit a lot better and are more comfortable,” said account director Stacey Bollinger. of Maryland, who has reported a 52-pound weight loss since starting Wegovy.
Some people said that taking medicine made them feel better. However, Yazeed and his two others described side effects that caused them to stop taking the drug and wonder if they could continue taking it long term.
Obesity medicine experts who prescribe Ozempic and Wegovy say the drug can change the lives and health of patients. The weight-loss effect allows patients to do activities they weren’t able to do before, like chasing after grandchildren or finding clothes that fit in mainstream stores. Semaglutide can also address health problems associated with obesity and diabetes, such as increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
“Treatment of obesity has the potential to effectively treat more than 200 other obesity- or weight-related diseases,” said Dr. Ania Yastrebov, associate professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. Jastreboff is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Novo Nordisk, which manufactures Ozempic and Wegovy.
Dramatic weight loss explained
The Food and Drug Administration approved Ozempic for people with type 2 diabetes in 2017, followed by Wegovy, the same drug, for weight loss in adults who are obese or overweight and have one or more body weights in 2021. approved. Related health conditions such as high blood pressure and cholesterol. Ozempic is not approved for weight loss, but doctors may prescribe it off label for that purpose.
Most people who have taken Ozempic or Wegovy report feeling less hungry and less cravings for unhealthy foods. Bollinger and her Seattle-area software developer Randi Lee Harper each report that he has lost more than 50 pounds.
Harper took Ozempic is off-label for weight loss from May through November (she paused while moving to Washington state, but plans to resume). She said she still enjoys her favorite foods, such as truffles her mac and cheese and sour patch kids her candies, but her portions have decreased.
“When you’re overweight, you don’t realize how food-focused your life is until you’re on a diet like Ozempic that makes you think less,” Harper said.
She added that for the most part she responded well to the medication.
As for Bollinger, she said that in addition to the weight loss, her average blood sugar dropped to a point where she wasn’t pre-diabetic.
A study of more than 1,000 people with type 2 diabetes found that semaglutide was more effective than insulin in lowering blood sugar levels. Participants did not see results from other antidiabetic drugs they continued to take during the trial. Those who took the placebo lost an average of 34 pounds within 16 weeks, compared to 6 pounds for those who took the placebo.
Dr. C. Nicole Swiner, a family physician in Durham, N.C., said he started taking Wegovy in 2021 after seeing how well Wegovy helped his patients. She said she has lost 30 pounds since then.
“I’m not starving so I can actually stop and make smarter decisions. [rather] than “Oh my God, I’m greedy.” Let’s grab whatever’s in the office kitchen,’ and it’s mostly junk,’ he says Swiner.
At Wegovy, she added, she ate less overall and replaced sweet treats like cookies and muffins with healthier alternatives like yogurt and fruit.
For Yazeed, weight loss wasn’t her reason for attending Ozempic, nor was it her goal. However, taking the medication forced me to eat, and I was often unable to eat anything but my morning protein shake. .
She lost 10 pounds in 2 months and went from size 12 to 8 or 10.
Patients who stop taking the drug often regain weight
Like many drugs, semaglutide’s effects stop when people stop taking it, so some people regain weight. Experts say they believe Ozempic and Wegovy are medicines for life.
Novo Nordisk told NBC News: “Wegovy’s clinical trial data, not unexpectedly, show that patients regain weight when they stop taking the drug.
“This supports the belief that obesity, like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, is a chronic disease that requires long-term management, and that most patients continue to receive treatment for the long term,” the company added.
Ebony Wiggins, who has type 2 diabetes, said she regained about 15 of the 25 pounds she lost last year after taking Ozempic.
Artemis Bayandor of Naperville, Illinois, said she gained more weight than when she was taking Wegovy. Within a month of stopping the drug, she regained her 15 pounds she had lost on the drug, she said, adding that she gained more than 10 pounds. next six months.
“The first week was fine, but in the second week I quickly returned to all cravings, but it got worse,” Bayandor said.
Some people stop taking drugs because of side effects.
Courtney Hamilton has not taken Ozempic off-label by her doctor for more than a month because she has type 1 diabetes, not type 2.
According to Hamilton, her nausea became so severe that she could barely eat, and the foods she could tolerate weren’t particularly healthy.
“Ironically, I’ve come to stick to very starchy, carbohydrate-rich foods like potatoes.
People usually start with a low dose of Ozempic or Wegovy and increase it gradually to reduce side effects. He said it could have serious consequences.
“If a patient says, ‘Oh, I’m sick. I can’t go to work. I’ve been vomiting all day,’ that’s probably not the right dose for them,” Stanford said. .
In clinical trials, 73% of adults taking the highest dose of Wegovy reported gastrointestinal problems. Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, constipation, and stomach pain are the most common. Some people have reported rare but more serious side effects, such as pancreatitis and kidney failure.
Novo Nordisk said patients experiencing nausea as a side effect should contact their healthcare provider for guidance on how to manage it.
Jastreboff advises her patients to eat smaller and more frequent meals, avoid eating more than they feel full, and monitor which foods make their symptoms worse. She added that it occurs when people are increasing their dose and subsides once they reach the maintenance phase.
Megan Cornelius, who has been taking Ozempic off-label for type 1 diabetes for several years, initially experienced nausea and fatigue, but those effects wore off over time.
“As long as I can keep drinking, I probably will,” said Cornelius.
For Eric Joiner Jr., a former type 2 diabetic, Ozempic has done nothing but the intended effect. namely to improve his kidney function. Joyner developed chronic kidney disease as a byproduct of diabetes.
He hasn’t experienced any side effects or weight loss from Ozempic, but he is aware that it doesn’t apply to everyone.
“At the end of the day, it’s very personal,” he said. “Your biology is different from mine.”
