Is there justification for continuing with Mounjaro no for MH reasons even when a healthy BMI?

[ThisNeedsToWork]

So my BMI is now 24, which I’m obviously overjoyed with. My eating habits are better and I’m exercising more. However, I’ve been here before; many times. One of my biggest issues is the food noise. I find it overwhelming to the extent that it actually causes depression. Over the years, I’ve tried anti depressants, none of which addressed the cause for me which was the constant obsession with food and eating. Taking Mounjaro has stopped that, dead. It’s been life changing for me. I had no idea the beneficial effects on my MH would be so profound. As an aside, my joints are so much better too. I’ve been down to this size a few times before in the last 10yrs with no real difference in my aches. So, my question is really whether it would be reasonable to stay on a low dose for the foreseeable not so much for maintenance but rather for the enormous benefits it’s had on my mental health?

The best advice I can give you is to not make other people's lack of understanding your problem. Your friend doesn't need to get it, only you do.

That’s so well put, thank you. I think we’re only just learning that this is the case, after years of blaming individuals. I think it’s very similar to neurodiversity - we’re understanding now that some people’s bodies and brains are just wired differently. And can be helped! It’s an absolute miracle as far as I’m concerned. Until I felt the difference in my brain and body for myself I always thought maybe I was just lazy and greedy. But I’m honestly not! Mounjaro makes me a normal person!! God, I wish the price hadn’t gone up 😢

Why wasn't the population fat like it is now then, before the 80's? Yes, you had the odd fat person, but they were the exception, not the norm. Stop eating processed, UPF shit, go back to whole foods, and it's very difficult to stay or become fat.

Well I’m staying on, am on a 5mg maintence dose. Have been for over 6 months now since I hit goal. I want it not just ti ensure I don’t regain, but to have a peaceful life where I don’t obsess on the scales, food, depriving myself, cutting out food groups all in a desperate attempt not to gain, and I want all the other health benefits, reduced cancers, improved cardio vascular, kidney and liver function , reduced inflammation, optimal insulin production, blood sugar management etc etc.

and I’m not canvassing opinion on it either. I have had several friends and family members ask and then inform me I can do it alone and don’t need it. I close it down immediately, it is not a discussion I am willing to have. It’s met with a simple “nope. It’s not up for discussion” . Other than my husband and daughter who I did discuss it with, and who are supportive and respectful of my choices. I also discussed with my gp who is also supportive.

My money. My body. My choice. And no one outside my husband, daughter and doctor, gets to give their opinion. I’m taking a prescription med for the reason it is prescribed. I don’t need to justify it, explain it or discuss it.

Are you still taking Ozempic @LizzyEm ?

Not this nonsense again. Yeah all fat people are fat as they ate upf and processed food. 🙄

I didn't take ozempic, I took Rybelsus, and no, I'm not. The side effects weren't worth it, I still had to eat low carb to get the blood sugar results so decided there was no point taking it as I get better results being ultra low carb/carnivore.

Ah, sorry. Your thread in July said you were prescribed Ozempic for diabetes. Is that for type 2?

Because until about WW2-ish a good chunk of the population didn't always have enough food to be properly nourished, then after that smoking rates kept appetites artificially suppressed. Maybe we need to go back to widespread malnutrition and start giving cigs to kids.

The Dr gave did give me a prescription for ozempic as well as Rybelsus and I decided to take the Rybelsus in the end but then decided I'd rather do it by diet alone. It is T2, as it runs in my family, but its controlled to non-diabetic levels now. My last HbA1c was 39mmol. Your point being?

Really? Not sure that’s in line with the latest thinking.🤔

Actually @HansHolbein - might need another bingo card

You didn’t get type 2 as you’re fat? Simply genetics and it runs in your family, you’re a slim healthy weight and always have been? I ask as you’re on here telling all us ex fatties how to eat so we don’t get fat. So it’s important you clarify.

Do all suppliers agree to prescribe a maintenence dose?
My sister is on Wegovy but she is sure her supplier won't supply her with a maintenence dose.
She too, has benefitted from the anti-inflammatory effects, and she has also had no desire for alcohol.

No,

monj.co.uk has a list of maintenance pharmacies.

I am on 10mg not at goal weight yet but hopefully in the next two months. Planning to come down as low as I can, I am fairly open to staying on MJ forever if I have to as I don’t want the work I have achieved over the past year to unravel.

Given that pharmacies are now supportive of maintenance I would say crack on @ThisNeedsToWork only you know your body and some pharmacies such as Pharmulous and Oushk allow returning customers with a healthy BMI.

Reposting this

“As new findings emerge, GLP-1 medi­cations are changing how researchers and clinicians think about body weight. Health issues that man­ifest as diabetes or obesity have been pri­marily considered peripheral disorders—problems of the pancreas, liver or body tissue—Hwang says, but this is only part of the picture. Jastreboff, who has been working on obesity treatments for 15 years, says the drugs are probes to better under­stand the physiology of obesity. “They’ve enabled us to have a con­versation about obesity as a complex neurometabolic disease,” she says.
For so long people who couldn’t lose weight and keep it off have been told that their willpower simply wasn’t strong enough, says Daniel Drucker, an en­do­crinologist at the University of Toronto, who researched GLP-1 alongside Mojsov in the 1990s. “We—including health-care pro­­­­fessionals—would blame people challenged by their inability to lose weight,” he says. “It’s hard to think of diseases where we blame the individual. You would never say, ‘Your cancer came back; you didn’t really try hard enough.’”
The study of GLP-1 could help erode the stigma associated with obesity and addiction by replacing assump­tions with clear pathology.
“We all have the same reward systems that are absolutely essential to normal functioning,” Pontzer says, “and it’s only when we get toward the real far end of the spectrum on those reward responses that we get into trouble.” This hormonal system is evolutionarily ancient. “And we are now, in 2024, finding the advantages of the system through these drugs—we have hijacked it, if you will,” Hayes says. “We are at the precipice of the ­beginning.”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ozempic-quiets-food-noise-in-the-brain-but-how/

Do you know the cause of your food and eating obsession?

May I suggest you read the article in the post I shared immediately before your post. You may learn some interesting science.

@Pumpernickelbrakes so it's physiological rather than psychological? Interesting.

If it was ethical and medically approved, i honestly think everyone should try a dose if mounjaro (because obviously nobody should be experimenting with someone else's prescribed medication), you'd learn more about your own appetite, metabolism and physiology in one tiny injection than in any normal lifetime.

90% of what i have lived decades believing were my own personal failings and weaknesses are in fact purely physiological, i just have slightly less of one or two hormones then many other people (and probably slightly more than some others who are very obese), the other 10% of my issues are psychological, due to a mother with her own complex issues around food and body image (and life in general!) and negative attitudes absorbed from society over 40 decades, but i can now see these for exactly what they are.

I took my first injection at bedtime and woke up the next morning as a smug skinny person trapped in a fat person's body, and was like "sometimes I'm just so busy i forget to eat" tinkly laugh!!

For me there is no underlying psychological issues. There’s no suppressed trauma or abuse.

I don’t think I helped my metabolism at all by trying to diet as a teenager. I’m 5ft 6 with big boobs and weighed 9st but felt fat compared to flat chested, petite friends so started dieting which turned into a lifelong yo-yo between restricting and binging. So yes, I probably did it to myself but I was young and lacked understanding of anything relating to metabolism.

There are lots of things that have changed since pre 1980’s - one of the main things is that many families work more hours with less time at home to focus on nutrition, easy convenience foods are used due to lack of time and food manufacturers have focused on pushing products that are super processed, extremely satiating and as cheap as possible, schools no longer teach home economics - all adding up to the massive health crisis we have now and also possibly causing physical changes to our bodies resulting in inflammation, depression, anxiety, food noise, hormonal changes and who knows what else. Things are never as black and white as you would like to make them out to be @LizzyEm and I think perhaps your intentions in this thread are very negative so probably best you jog on and find somewhere else to post, I’m sure there is probably a Mumsnet thread for people with a holier than thou disposition like yours where you can all get together and discuss how perfect you are 🙄

If weight gain was purely about psychology the drugs wouldn’t work for most people, we’d all be able to push through unless on such a high dose it knocked us sick all the time and then everyone would stop taking it. As we’d want to eat. That would be our driving force.

the mere fact the drugs work, and so well, for so many, tell us it is physiological in the main. As soon as our blood sugar is managed and our insulin optimal, we can all do it. Very few need to go for therapy for some new outlet as they don’t eat their feelings anymore or whatever buzzword we use now. Most are happier, healthier and in control. If anything proves it is primarily physical, the drugs do this.

however there is a percentage of people it is psychological. These people are reticent to take the drugs, as they don’t want to lose the comfort of food. Or they go on them as they feel they should, but eat all the wrong things deliberately, declare the drugs make them unwell, as they knew they would and stop. Or who don’t diet, keep eating as they please, and again,declare the drugs don’t work. As said, you can push through. The fact millions of us don’t speaks volumes.

I certainly wasn’t eating my feelings, I just felt bloody hungry and had cravings that were impossible to ignore. My food was healthy and whole, but a regular portion didn’t fill me, not even close. I also felt exhausted much of the time, didn’t sleep well due to sleep apnea, and menopause gave me increased cortisol which excaberated the issue, and in turn caused metabolic disease as I gained weight, it was a physiological circle I couldn’t get out of before the advent of these drugs.

now, I eat a healthy balanced diet, I work out 5-6 days a week, my blood pressure is normal, my sleep apnea gone, my cortisol levels in check, my cholesterol is healthy, my bmi is 20, and I’m fit and toned.

i wasn’t depressed, traumatised, obsessed with food. The only thing that made me unhappy was I was unwell, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it under control, not for the length of time needed, my body was screaming out constantly starving hungry, that, that made me unhappy.

until you’ve been through it, you don’t understand it. From the first injection my stomach started to shrink back, at such a rate that people noticed within 2 weeks, as I looked like I visibly lost a lot more weight than I had. the inflammation in my body went, I could do a sitting kneel again easily, something I’d not been able to do for a few years as my ankles wouldn’t bend. Within a couple of weeks they did. Easily. My ankles also were not sore and stiff in the morning, they moved freely. My cortisol levels started coming under control, at the same time, meaning my blood pressure started to reduce.

these drugs are significantly more than just an appetite suppressant, or a digestion slower, or messing with dopamine. They deal with metabolic dysfunction, they are just a synthetic version of a peptide we produce naturally, but that we produce less of as we age.

@ThisNeedsToWork same for me but with added pressure from my mother. It totally buggered up how I viewed food and eating, and morphed to disordered eating so I do view it as a psychological issue, albeit a very long standing one.

Through therapy, I have developed some techniques over the years for dealing with the monkey chatter about food that goes on in my brain, some are more successful than others.

If it works for you, you can afford it and no risk to health then do it, food noise is awful and constant.