‘It changed my life’: Ozempic patient shares her good, bad and scary side effects | 24CA News
For Edmonton native Susanne Brown, Ozempic has been life-changing. After being prescribed the drug, she climbs mountains, she’s coaching for a 10-kilometre run, and he or she’s ziplined by way of tropical forests in Mexico and swum in cenotes.
“I do whatever I want because I can,” she says. “It has changed my life completely. It’s taken the fear out of everything that I do physically.”
But Brown wasn’t prescribed Ozempic for its on-label use as a Type 2 diabetes remedy; she takes it off-label, for weight problems. She’s actually not the one Canadian to take action, however it may be tough for folks with weight problems to talk publicly about utilizing the drug to handle weight.
Ozempic crashed into mainstream consciousness early this yr, as shortages of the drug within the U.S. and Australia led to media narratives that individuals abusing the drug to shed some pounds have been protecting it out of the arms of individuals with diabetes who want it most.
But this account leaves out the rising quantity of people that take Ozempic to shed some pounds below knowledgeable docs’ orders, to stop coronary heart illness and diabetes, handle continual ache and in some circumstances dwell more healthy, extra succesful lives.
And whereas folks love to invest who in Hollywood is likely to be taking the drug, these before-and-after photos conceal the reality: that Ozempic shouldn’t be some miracle treatment for weight reduction.
For Brown, shedding weight on Ozempic got here with main downsides — however the downsides have been price it for her for managing her weight problems, a continual situation that she’s going to seemingly battle with for the remainder of her life. Not to say a fringe profit: she feels society treats her higher now that she lives in a smaller physique.
Misconceptions about Ozempic abound, they usually typically go hand in hand with misconceptions about weight problems and people recognized with it.
Misconception 1: Ozempic is only for diabetes
Ozempic is a brand-name diabetes treatment manufactured by Novo Nordisk, however the medical ingredient in it’s known as semaglutide. Semaglutide works by mimicking a hormone known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which stimulates the discharge of insulin and helps to scale back blood sugar spikes.
It additionally suppresses urge for food, by serving to sufferers really feel fuller, quicker — making it an efficient remedy for weight reduction.
Novo Nordisk truly manufactures two medicine the place semaglutide is the one medical ingredient: Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes, and Wegovy for weight problems. Both medicine have been permitted to be used in Canada, Ozempic since 2018 and Wegovy since 2021.
Though Wegovy has been permitted in Canada for weight problems for 2 years, a prescription for the drug has by no means been crammed right here. It’s nonetheless not accessible on account of quick provide. So, to get that very same drug to their sufferers, docs have begun prescribing Ozempic off-label for weight problems.
“It’s the same drug, it’s the same factory, same company. It’s just a different pen so you can administer a larger dose easier,” says Dr. Michael Lyon, medical director of the Obesity Medicine & Diabetes Institute in Coquitlam, B.C.
So why do we’ve got two names for it, permitted for various situations, if the drug is precisely the identical?
“It’s really a marketing problem for the drug company,” Lyon says.
He doesn’t care what the commerce title is, he simply prescribes semaglutide.
Dr. Sean Wharton, an inside medication doctor and weight administration specialist, explains that regulators like Health Canada and drug firms like Novo Nordisk will be keen on advertising the identical drug in a different way for various medical points to watch unintended effects and dispensation and to regulate worth.
But he sees the confusion round Ozempic and Wegovy and needs they’d simply been known as the identical drug from the outset to clear the air.
Semaglutide has been permitted for weight problems, so if prescribing Ozempic is the one method folks residing with weight problems can entry it, they need to get to make use of it, Wharton says. And when Wegovy is on the market in Canada, that’s the drug that ought for use.
He says since there’s no scarcity of Ozempic in Canada, there’s no purpose to limit entry to it for folks residing with weight problems.
Misconception 2: Obesity is a way of life alternative
Brown, a 40-year-old therapeutic massage therapist, tried all the things to shed some pounds the way in which individuals are “supposed” to. She ate wholesome and labored out repeatedly, however with out medical intervention, these life-style adjustments didn’t result in significant weight reduction.
“I had done every single diet on the face of the planet and failed at every single one of them,” she stated. “They’d all work for a certain period of time and then they wouldn’t.”
Doctors now perceive weight problems as a lifelong, advanced illness, with a number of potential causes that result in extreme physique fats and generally, poor well being.
“We make these assumptions and apply this kind of bias and bigotry towards people that have excessive weight. If they had high blood pressure, you wouldn’t feel so obliged to moralize the problem, and would probably realize that there’s a lot of complexity there and maybe medications are sometimes appropriate or essential,” Lyon says.
For years we’ve got tried to deal with weight problems by placing folks by way of diets and train regimes, however proof exhibits that doesn’t all the time work, and sometimes, weight shed through diets tends to be put again on over time. That’s why Lyon and Wharton agree that Ozempic and different medical interventions could be a highly effective device to kick-start weight reduction at the side of life-style adjustments.
In 2013, Brown underwent bariatric surgical procedure, the elimination of a giant a part of the abdomen to scale back starvation indicators and induce weight reduction. She misplaced 100 kilos and ran a half marathon to mark the event. She calls it among the best selections of her life.
Susanne Brown, left, earlier than Ozempic, and proper, after taking the drug (together with different remedies). According to Brown, she went from 280 kilos to 140 kilos.
Susanne Brown
But within the years that adopted, her weight ultimately began creeping again, it doesn’t matter what she did to attempt to cease it. In 2019, her weight problems specialist prompt Ozempic.
The mixture of surgical procedure and Ozempic have been instrumental for Brown to succeed in a few of her health targets, recording personal-best weightlifting data and operating instances. She is aware of that shedding weight and protecting it off may lengthen her life and it’s relieving stress on her joints. Taking the drug shouldn’t be with out sacrifice, nonetheless, and he or she warns it’s not acceptable for folks to make use of in the event that they’re simply seeking to slim down.
In her expertise, Ozempic got here with some severe unintended effects.
Misconception 3: Losing weight on Ozempic is a fast, painless course of
Brown says taking Ozempic is akin to “doctor-approved anorexia.” For her, the sensation of shedding weight on the drug was “addicting.”
When she first began on Ozempic, it led to harmful consuming habits, the place she would “eat two pieces of cauliflower and be full.” If a affected person so needs, they may cease consuming completely by taking an increasing number of of the drug, Brown warns.
Brown remembers that she needed to take caffeine dietary supplements to remain awake throughout the day and to have sufficient power to work out as a result of she wasn’t getting sufficient diet on Ozempic. Eventually, she grew to become anemic and her hair began to fall out.
Even with these distressing downsides, Brown stated she would by no means discourage somebody with weight problems from taking Ozempic, partially due to how significantly better society treats her now that she’s bodily smaller.
“The way that the world treats you as well is very, very different,” she stated.
Men who knew her when she was heavier abruptly needed up to now her. She runs long-distance races now; when beforehand, at a heavier weight, strangers would cease her on the road and inform her to cease operating due to her dimension.
Brown’s experiences deliver into focus the load bias that many individuals expertise after they dwell in bigger our bodies, and the way Ozempic can really feel like a godsend. But within the unsuitable context, Ozempic can do extra hurt than good.
She labored with a therapist and private coach to enhance her physique picture and relationship with meals. She went from being scared to eat to “eating more food than I’ve ever eaten in 10 years” by monitoring her macronutrients like protein and carbohydrates. She was nonetheless shedding weight, however she was additionally gaining muscle.
Brown believes that the psychological impacts of taking Ozempic and shedding weight needs to be studied extra to know how addictive the method will be. She desires folks to know that shedding weight whereas going through weight problems will be vital to defending one’s long-term well being, however not if it means sacrificing the meals and diet wanted to perform.
Lyon agrees that in isolation, Ozempic gained’t do a lot to handle the basis of weight problems, and the drug must be taken as a part of a broader program that targets a affected person’s psychological well being.
Lyon is an advocate for “health at any size,” a rising motion in public well being that acknowledges that skinnier doesn’t all the time imply more healthy, and that weight bias and the stress to shed some pounds can typically trigger severe well being issues — each bodily and psychological.
For that purpose, he believes Ozempic for weight reduction ought to solely be reserved for folks with weight problems and going through adversarial well being issues that make the danger of taking the drug price it.
As Wharton places it: “If you’re a larger body size and perfectly healthy, then you should be called beautiful. You should not have the suggestion that you should be on a medication.”
