"I Started Ozempic Last Night" THREAD THREE

[Athena51]

Starting a new thread as we are dangerously close to finishing thread two. So great to have this supportive community to share our experiences of taking Ozempic for weightloss.

"Old-timers" and new starters all welcome!

Thanks to toy all for your kind words, I am stupidly teary about all of this. Having to call in sick to work again etc. I just cant make it work. I will step away from the drug. All is not lost (🙄 the most triggering pun) as I still have a nice loss of 8kg. I just wanted this to work long term (borderline T2 diabetic, insulin resistance etc). I have made an appointment with an endocrinologist to see what advise they can give. I will still keep following the thread if that is ok.

good luck everyone!

Please do stay on the thread, I intend to.
I’m really sorry you are feeling teary. It is a hard when you see it working for other people- why did we have to be one of the few who can’t take it?? However, I think you will feel a little better when you feel physically better. We’ve both had a kickstart to our diets so that’s something at least. Keep me posted how you get on x

Has anyone noticed any muscle loss on their withings scales?

I'm sure you may have thought of this, but just in case....

I have noticed that my relative "feeling sick-ness" changes according to what I have eaten. Specifically sugar, chocolate, carbs, oh and alcohol.

I have just eaten 3 squares of chocolate and now feel very very uncomfortable, and in fact quite sick. I am unable to eat any dinner and will have to wait or leave it for tomorrow.

I think you really do have to quite substantially make your diet more healthy, and quite keto-ish to make this work.

Coincidentally I have been doing it alongside a vegetarian/low carb diet (different reasons not weight related) , no effects. I have changed back to more fish/meat based and more carbs and can definitely tell the difference.

You need to eat like you are diabetic....low sugars, lowish carbs.

I notice muscle loss whenever I swim (3 days a week) and a slight gain when I do resistance work. It's holding it's own overall. It's not hugely different from when I lost quite a bit early 2020. It's is odd though because my legs definitely feel much stronger after all the swimming. I damaged my ACL, PCL & tore my meniscus in November 2020 and couldn't even walk easily for months let alone exercise so I lost a lot of muscle. I can walk and stair climb much easier after swimming for 8 weeks (started before Ozempic). I've been half seriously wondering if Ozempic alters body chemistry in some way so my Withings isn't giving a true measument.

I don’t have Withings scales, but I am lifting the same weights as before and you can see my muscles more clearly now not covered in fat!

Has anyone established at a 1mg dose successfully moved from Juniper to a cheaper provider? Or do they all start you again at 0.25?

thanks

yes i have moved to quickmeds very good service so far .
if you enter save5 you will get a fiver off so around 150 per month
how are you getting on?

Me too. Quick Meds have been really good.

Ah I should have tried quick meds. I have ordered a 1mg pen from Mayfair with a view to do the 0.5mg does from it… I also emailed Manual asking if i could get a 1mg pen if I hadn’t ordered from them before but there was no response and you cant pick what dose you want or write a note anywhere before checking out and paying…

I’ve been eating a bit more the past few days and feeling quite tired (exhausted today!). I don’t really have any other side effects though so I hope when I eventually go up to 0.5 it will help with the appetite more.

Hi I am starting Ozempic tomorrow and getting a bit nervous. Have you guys notice any pattern to why it works for some people and not others? Thanks!

Oh thank you for this information! That's very interesting! Since it's a diabetic medicine this actually make a lot of sense. It is there to control insulin and get triggered when the blood sugar is high maybe!

Don’t be nervous the needle is tiny and the injection is an absolute cinch. You are correct that there are responders and non-responders. Some people also give up be aide they can’t tolerate the side-effects.

I am lucky to have a great Consultant Endocrinologist who specialises in this and he explained it to me like this:

Ozempic is a GLP-1 agonist (if you haven’t read about it; time to do your research 😉) and so it (theoretically) works as long as your GLP-1 receptors are not already receiving their maximum dose of GLP-1 naturally, so the drug can help out. Loads of people with Diabetes and Obesity have a problem with this hormone so that’s why it works for loads of people with these problems. See risky if you have a problem with not having enough of this hormone, then Ozempic can successfully mimic it.

When considering going up in dose for example; it may be that you lose more weight on a higher dose of Ozempic or it may be that your receptors can’t take anymore so then the increase in dose wouldn’t have an impact.

Clinicians consider you a ‘responder’ if you loose 5pc of your body weight within the first few months.

I know the last time I explained this to someone, someone else (politely) objected to the ‘maxed out’ theory from their own research, so I can only told you what I have been advised by my specialist.

good luck; think positive x

Where I have put ‘See risky’ it has autocorrected from ‘So basically’!

Thanks for that explanation @Dogsarebetterthanhumans. Very interesting.

I also find it works better if I limit carbs. I’m on holiday at the moment and eating pretty much anything I want but pretty small quantities. Thankfully I don’t get the sickness feeling.

For me the other thing about reducing carbs is that I know when I stop taking Ozempic I will need to reduce carbs to maintain my loss. After all for most of us it’s carbs that caused our weight issues in the first place. The Obesity Code by Jason Fung is interesting - he reckons insulin resistance causes weight gain which then leads to diabetes. The general thinking by others is that being overweight causes insulin resistance which causes diabetes.

So if we want to maintain the weight loss we should be planning on being really careful with carbs.

Thanks @orangelotus and @leilani83 for the recommendation

@orangelotus I’m doing really well. Several months on 1mg now. No side effects any more and good appetite suppression. I’ve lost about 20lbs

Thank you so much for this detailed explanation! Really appreciate the support !

I’m not sure why it didn’t work for me (as in the side effects were too severe) but worked for others. I am in the obese category and I became extremely careful about what I ate (reducing carbs etc) & drank after a couple of early mistakes. But I still couldn’t hold down food after the 3rd week, even the blandest or healthiest. And I was only drinking water.

I will never know the reason but I think it was just bad luck. The vast majority of people on this thread haven’t suffered such severe nausea & vomiting so you will very probably be fine. If you do find it doesn’t agree with you, you have control over giving it up but I hope you experience only mild or brief side effects.

I have just read that wegovy will be available in the uk in a matter of weeks and available for £70 ish pounds on the NHS

(Source daily mail)

I'm coming to the end of my 2nd week and feel like the injection hasn't worn off day 6/7 like it had week 1.

Do some people stick with 0.25 if they feel it is still working for them after 4 weeks?

I know I may feel differently when I get to week 4 and my body may adjust.

Yes some people stick with 0.25mg beyond 4 weeks if it is still working for them. There’s no reason to rush to go up to higher doses.
Your 0.25mg pen will contain more than 4 doses.

13lbs off for me now. Very pleased with that. 3rd week of 0.5. Side effects have pretty much worn off for me now which is great, very mild heartburn the day after injection but that's it.

No loss for me this week, am on 0.5, I'm not surprised after the sugar heavy weekend, I still don't 'feel' back to my normal way of eating after it so I definitely won't be making that mistake again. Am on the week6 plateau I think: how long did it last for others?

I thought the same as you, but it definitely wore off during the last week so I did a second dose part way through the week to top up and then moved to 0.5

Thanks love your graphs @Cozytoesandtoast00 @suphi @themuminator they are an impressive trajectory!

@IAmBreathingIn @OneAndDon3 I am impressed by your willpower not weighing.

Day 7 day today and decided to weigh. Partly because I'm unable to resist and partly because if I do lose significant weight then I'll need to adjust my calorie intake.

And 7 days and 2.5kg lost, I am astounded! Don't expect this every week but I'm so pleased to be back in double (not triple) figures on the scales!