we’re in our mid 60s. But I think the reason was that we hadn’t tried everything else first. My A1C was just diagnosed this year. (and my wife was not diabetic nor obese). But we couldn’t lose the weight. We now are both down over 20 pounds .She’s at a good weight, I have 15 or so to go. I’m looking forward to my next blood test. I’ve been exercising like I haven’t since high school. 4 to 6 times per week of at least 40 minutes of aerobic exercise (mostly peloton bike).
My weight appears to have largely stabilized since the dosage drop, which is good - I truly do not need to lose any additional weight but would prefer not to gain much either. I mean, I’d have a way to go before I was UNDERWEIGHT, as I’m just at the top of the “normal” range for my height, but at 80+ pounds down, I’m not too worried.
Likely unrelated but I’ve now had TWO bouts of severe diarrhea in the past 4 weeks. One started with a normal-for-me bad evening (Bile acid diarrhea) but then that lingered, to the point where after a week, I went to the ER. Upshot: some kind of infectious enterocolitis, which gradually got better over the next few days; no pathogens were identified but my white blood cell count was fairly high.
Then yesterday, I ate some soup / egg noodles which sat in my stomach like a lump of lead. The occasional gassy belch, occasionally accompanied by acidic reflux. I wished my gut would just hurl already. And the trots kicked in. All. Night. Long.
Late this morning, while sitting on the toilet, I got my wish 
It was really, really, really bad. And likely utterly unrelated to the Ozempic though I doubt that helped. But I admit, I felt a LOT better afterward.
@Mama_Zappa, this sounds like a treatment that is way worse than the disease! Hang in there.
Well, I’m one of those “lucky” people who genuinely feels better after hurling, so there’s that…
but this time, I had to deal with the mess. It was at least a half hour before I’d cleaned the floor enough to be safe to walk on. I’m glad we keep the Swiffer Wet Jet in that bathroom.
I was reminded, today, that I’ll need to stop the Ozempic a week before any surgeries / other procedures. Of which there are at least two in my near future.
I’m still on the 0.5 mg dose (by click-counting the 1.0 mg pen). Weight is still creeping down, which I sure hope stops at some point - the jeans I bought in the spring, that are meant to last me the rest of my life (they are just about perfect - not too tight, looser legs, HUGE pockets) are now loose enough that I NEED to wear a belt. My weight loss is now in the neighborhood of 90 pounds - over 1/3 of my starting weight. Egad. If I keep losing, I may need to go down to 0.25 mg. I actually weigh less than my husbad now - and he’s 5 inches shorter than I am.
Saw my primary care doc yesterday - he’s new, I’ve only seen him once before. He is apparently much less fast to jump on the “medicate that T2DM” bandwagon and said that he’d be fine if I wanted to stop the Ozempic entirely. Apparently, with my A1C last year of 6.8 he wouldn’t have even put me on metformin at all. Anyway, I reminded him that the 6.8 was ON metformin, and the 5.4 in April and again yesterday were both on Ozempic, which was clearly working well for me.
Two months on 2.0, no loss of the weight that came back on, and my toes tingle in a way that suggests it’s not working. I will have an A1c in January and assess.
Ugh! Sorry it’s not working out for you.
Might you be able to try Mounjaro instead?
Me: I’m still on 0.5 mg (cut down back in August) - and still losing weight, which honestly needs to STOP HAPPENING. I’ve had some more “queasy” days this week, and am wondering about maybe cutting down to 0.25 if things don’t improve.
My A1C was 5.4 again, at least.
Congrats on your A1c. I might be able to try Mounjaro–it’s on an odd special category in my formulary, so iy may or may not be an option. If I have a better A1c, I’ll keep taking Oz.
Last night I had some leftover stir fry.
A couple hours later, I had a little more - basically trying to get some more calories into my system.
This… backfired.
Welp. After about 18 months on it, seeing good results - while I
“only” lost 40 lbs that was a good bit over 10% of my starting weight, my a1c coming down into the normal range, my cholesterol being in the normal range (both of those numbers for the first time in many years) …my insurance has declined to continue coverage.
While my doctor said “there’s a compounding pharmacy you can use” that’s $195/month and that’s out of my budget right now - it might become an option in February, because of some changes I’ve made, but it also might not be. I’ll have to evaluate the budget carefully. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks taking a lower amount of my last dose (I was on 2mg) and next week I’ll take the last of it.
Note: I had never had a diabetes diagnosis and that’s what my insurance requires going forward. They won’t cover wegovy.
I’ve read every word of this thread as I’m getting ready to start Zepbound for weight loss. I’m 55, 5’4” and 210 with a miserable case of lack of energy/motivation due to my weight. A1C is not amazing, I would call it pre-pre diabetic (can’t remember the number), and cholesterol is at the lower end of being high. I did Optavia 8 years ago and lost 70 lbs and felt great, ate great, exercised cardio/weights and maintained for three years (it also kind of skyrocketed me through menopause and now I’m post-menopause and never had the side effects, an unexpected blessing)…until I got into a relationship with a man who eats terribly, sits around and watches TV, and is basically embracing the idea of being elderly. Unfortunately when the pandemic happened, I started working from home full time, moving less, and backslid into his habits like a glacier. I’ve had food issues for my entire life, so it is immensely difficult to be around someone who eats delicious junk all the time.
I loathe the idea of dealing with nausea, I’m terrified about losing hair (I’m already thinning due to thyroid and testosterone that my gynecologist recommended to help with energy in addition to HRT (it’s not helping and I’m meeting with him soon to talk about discontinuing all but the estrogen/progesterone)).
But I have to get this weight off and start moving again. I can NOT do the willpower thing again that Optavia required. If I’d have known going in what a Herculean effort it was going to take, I don’t think I could have done it. I never cheated one single day for 9 months until my goal weight. Now I know how hard that is I could never do it again.
So here I am. Got through the holidays, enjoyed all of my favorite foods, and I’m ready to do this thing (as long as the rest of my hair doesn’t fall out lol). I’ve already started exercising a little, and I’m only motivated to do it because I know I’m going to start the Zepbound.
So I expect to start by end of month after meeting with my gyn and getting the hair thing under control. The prescription is waiting for me to pick up.
I have wondered if I should fast a little before starting? I know that your stomach basically clamps down (I’m being dramatic) and the idea of just starting with a bunch of food in my stomach seems like a recipe for disaster based on some of the things I’ve read.
You should be starting on the lowest dose and then titrating up, so it will take a while for the full effect. I was lucky with minimal side effects and I’m still on .5mg of Ozempic as it is having exactly the clinical result my doc wanted and my primary reason is glycemic control. The weight loss is just a side benefit.
I just got back from 10 days in Mexico City having eaten less than healthy with some fatty tacos, sweet drinks, and deserts. Between the increased activity and the fact that I eat smaller portions than I used to I came back having lost 2 pounds.
Yes, I’m hoping it’ll be easier than the things I read about. Maybe I’m assuming it’ll be bad right out of the gate and should reevaluate my worry.
I’ve been on Zepbound since March and am now at my target weight, having lost just shy of 70 pounds. I’ve never had ‘real’ nausea - you know, the full-blown thing where you think you might throw up. At most, I’ve had pre-nausea, the general feeling that something’s not right in the stomach but no serious discomfort or worry.
For those times, I’ve kept various ginger chews or candies around, it takes care of it right away, plus they’re kind of a nice treat. Tummydrops is my favorite brand, but only the straight ginger ones, not any of the ginger+another flavor ones.
I did have some moderately entertaining bouts of diarrhea in the first couple of weeks as I was working out what I should and shouldn’t be eating, but nothing incapacitating. Mostly I found that any craving I had for things that would upset my stomach disappeared and I was never tempted. Any issues I had were more around eating out of the house in a situation where I had limited good options.
Can’t speak to the hair loss as I was pretty close to bald to begin with.
The only side effect I had that I found to be a problem at all was tiredness. Especially the first week of the later, higher doses. Just took more naps is all. Otherwise my journey to date has been pretty smooth sailing.
Except the clothes shopping. My wife finally put her foot down and started sending me pictures of me wearing whatever billowing thing I dragged out of the closet that day. I pretty much had to start over. I like how I look in all my new stuff, something I couldn’t say before, but buying everything more or less at once (including nicer work travel stuff) was a little rough on the wallet.
edit: CAKE DAY!
For me Ozempic was just the last 15 pounds, working from home for the last 5 years and not eating crappy fast food was the other 40 pounds. I had to throw out 38-40" pants and replace them with 30-32". I looked like David Byrne in the big suit.
I need to re-weigh myself - the day I got back from our annual trip to Vermont, my weight was up 7-8 pounds. Still well below the top of the “healthy weight” range. I need to make sure it doesn’t creep up much more though.
Weirdly, my stomach has been MASSIVELY better in recent weeks - to the point where I’m wondering if the Ozempic is losing its effect. I have been able to overeat (not massively, but…) on several occasions. I had at one point thought I might need to lower my dose again from 0.5, but if this trend continues I will definitely rethink that and may even go up to 0.75 (by click-counting the 1.0 pen).
On fun news: My wedding ring is hammered gold. At one point, I had to have it enlarged a little - they basically put it on a clamp and hammered it a bit more, which made it expand. Even so, I outgrew it. I bought an inexpensive mass-market plain gold band 25 or so years ago to wear instead.
A few years ago, my husband misplaced his ring, so I let him use mine. He had to have a ring guard attached to effectively reduce its size. When his own ring turned up, he gave mine back.
Last week, I put my own ring - guard still in place - back on and it was comfortable. I would not dare wear my engagement ring without it in place, and that replacement wedding ring would likely fall right off my hand. I think I’d prefer the ring without the ring guard, but it’s fascinating to know that I can wear it as is.
I had to add a ring guard to my wedding ring since it was flying off my hand all the time. I have no idea what I weighed 25 years ago, but it must have been more than now.
I weigh less than when we got married, but not a whole lot less. I suppose one could argue that a “lost” ring needs replacing with something newer / fancier / more stones, but I like my original wedding ring, and the “engagement” ring was actually bought 10 years after the fact so I definitely like that. Maybe it’s time for an anniversary ring…
I was just diagnosed with diabetes today with a miserable A1C value, and I have been precribed Ozempic and Metformin.
This thread has been interesting.
Best wishes!
I don’t think Ozempic is working for me. It only worked a little, but my weight, my A1c (I suspect), and my diabetic neuropathy are all back to their pre-Oz levels. I’ve read that it doesn’t work for 20% of people.
I’ll have an A1c this week, and I’m likely to ask to try a different medication.