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I’ve been debating whether to ask my doctor about trying it. My whole adult life I’ve been struggling with my weight and tried nutritionist, apps, you name it a

I’ve been debating whether to ask my doctor about trying it. My whole adult life I’ve been struggling with my weight and tried nutritionist, apps, you name it and can’t keep the weight off for more than a year. I hate vomiting so this is making me rethink. Thanks for sharing very helpful.

mindcrime 3y ago
I don't want to overstate the case. Again, the cases of intense vomiting have been very infrequent and - perhaps more to the point - it's possible that I could avoid those with corresponding changes to my diet, whether it's content, timing, etc. That said, even on days when there's no outright vomiting, I do experience moderately frequent nausea, which is rather annoying. Since I am diabetic, I've chosen to simply accept the side effects as being acceptable in service of the "greater good". But yeah, consider talking to you doctor and just see what he/she has to say. Maybe a smaller dose could help you with your weight, while not leading to the nausea / vomiting / etc. I'll note that I didn't start getting that stuff until my doc upped my dose from .25mg / week to 1mg / week. YMMV.
mainedotpy 3y ago
I personally take ozempic and have also prescribed it to ~150+ patients for diabetes. I've maybe had to stop it in ~8 patients for tolerability issues. We unfortunately usually dont get to hear many chiming in to say that they tolerated it just fine. I do (2mg/week), down 45lbs. Being heavy is really bad for you. Don't be so quick to write it off d/t the possibility of vomiting.
- JediWing 3y ago
  I will step in to be the "it's not so bad" coming forward. I get stomach upset and a bit of reflux when I overeat, but that makes total sense given the goal of the medicine. Honestly the metformin I was prescribed at the same time as semaglutide makes me feel worse more consistently, and even that is tolerable. I say go for it OOP. It shouldn't cause any permanent damage trying it out.
  - mindcrime 3y ago
    I get stomach upset and a bit of reflux when I overeat, I suspect that the couple of cases of severe vomiting I had, may relate to either eating too much, or eating at the wrong time, or both. So I think that if I'm more careful in the future, I can avoid those occurrences. Overeating is definitely bad, since Ozempic - as I heard it described - "slows down the movement of food through your digestive system, which leads to a feeling of fullness". That effect apparently being part of how/why Ozempic leads to weight loss. But that also suggests that you have to be really careful about not eating too much or you might overload your system in a way that exacerbates the side effects. My subject feeling is also that timing is an issue: I think that eating late makes it more likely that the bad side effects will occur. I'm trying to shift to making lunch my largest meal of the day, and then eating a very light dinner, and preferably earlier than in past years. Time will tell if this theory is right or not, but it's where I'm leaning at the moment.
- bilsbie 3y ago
  How long does the vomiting last if you have a bad reaction? More than a day?
  - mindcrime 3y ago
    Speaking for myself, the pattern has been like this on the occasions that I've had a really severe case of vomiting: At some point I start noticing an intense "bloat" / gas feeling - with lots of burping and farting - as well as possibly some nausea and diarrhea. This will last for a few hours. Maybe 3 or 4? I wasn't keeping notes unfortunately. Then, at some point I'll just have a sudden urge to vomit (it comes on fast) where I'm lucky to make it to the bathroom to expel everything into the toilet. The actual vomiting last 2-3 minutes, after which I go back to feeling relatively normal, other than slightly drained feeling, and that slightly acid-scarred feeling in my throat. The worst part, in many ways, is cleaning up afterwards. Even though I've made it to the bathroom both times this has happened, the stream of vomit is so intense that I can't necessarily keep it all in the toilet. When I said "power vomiting" that was no joke. So inevitably some winds up on the floor, the wall beside the toilet, my clothes (if I'm wearing any), etc. Getting the bathroom clean and back to smelling normal is... not fun.
TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Of course everyone's struggle is personal. For me, I have been listening to the Maintenance Phase podcast, reading Aubrey Gordon's new book, and learning that a lot of what we hold as fact or "common sense" about weight loss is untrue, that individual bodies respond very differently to the same diet and exercise schedule, and that a lot of the ideas around fatness are rooted in a cultural anti-fatness that views fatness as a personal failing, rather than another parameter of the body like height or hair color. This has helped me learn to simply be happy with my size. Our bodies are not all meant to be skinny like the people we see on TV or instagram. There is a natural variance even for people with healthy diets and good exercise routines. I can't enumerate everything that Aubrey Gordon shares in her excellent book, but I can say that learning to accept myself has been far more rewarding than constantly trying to chase weight loss schemes that only leave me back where I started. I feel confident and sexy now without any weight loss, and this is leading more people to be very obviously more attracted to me (because confidence is sexy!). I realized I never needed to lose weight to be attractive, I needed to accept myself for who I am. I would urge anyone considering these treatments, whose lifelong effects we still do not understand, to learn about anti-fatness and how we have all been misled in to believing that everyone is supposed to be skinny. Here's a great article from Aubrey to get started: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148169767/anti-fatness-keeps-fat-people-on-the-margins-says-aubrey-gordon https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148169767/anti-fatness-keeps... Finally I want to say that if anyone is just going to come in here and say being fat is unhealthy, or repeat any of the common tropes about weight loss, you're not going to get anywhere with me. The whole point of Aubrey's work is that these so-called common sense ideas are so deeply held in our society that few have really questioned them, and it takes more than a cursory examination to try to make sense of how we got here. Repeating the basic ideas does nothing to advance this conversation. If you must respond, read the article above before criticizing the basics of what I am saying. Aubrey can explain it far better than I can.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  > that these so-called common sense ideas are so deeply held in our society that few have really questioned them Yes, these issues have been studied and questioned. In traditional hunter-gatherer societies (people whose diet and lifestyle matches what humans evolved for), obesity is almost unheard of, as are diabetes and other metabolic diseases. But when these same hunter-gatherers adopt a modern lifestyle and diet, their rates of these diseases go way up. From this evidence, we can conclude that obesity is not a purely natural phenomenon, but caused in part by modern lifestyles.
mgarfias 3y ago
I take 2mg ozempic, worst thing was starting (lower dose) and with any stomach upset, I get nasty sulphur smelling burps. It’s gross, but didn’t last.

mindcrime 3y ago

I don't want to overstate the case. Again, the cases of intense vomiting have been very infrequent and - perhaps more to the point - it's possible that I could avoid those with corresponding changes to my diet, whether it's content, timing, etc. That said, even on days when there's no outright vomiting, I do experience moderately frequent nausea, which is rather annoying. Since I am diabetic, I've chosen to simply accept the side effects as being acceptable in service of the "greater good". But yeah, consider talking to you doctor and just see what he/she has to say. Maybe a smaller dose could help you with your weight, while not leading to the nausea / vomiting / etc. I'll note that I didn't start getting that stuff until my doc upped my dose from .25mg / week to 1mg / week. YMMV.

mainedotpy 3y ago

I personally take ozempic and have also prescribed it to ~150+ patients for diabetes. I've maybe had to stop it in ~8 patients for tolerability issues. We unfortunately usually dont get to hear many chiming in to say that they tolerated it just fine. I do (2mg/week), down 45lbs. Being heavy is really bad for you. Don't be so quick to write it off d/t the possibility of vomiting.

JediWing 3y ago
I will step in to be the "it's not so bad" coming forward. I get stomach upset and a bit of reflux when I overeat, but that makes total sense given the goal of the medicine. Honestly the metformin I was prescribed at the same time as semaglutide makes me feel worse more consistently, and even that is tolerable. I say go for it OOP. It shouldn't cause any permanent damage trying it out.
- mindcrime 3y ago
  I get stomach upset and a bit of reflux when I overeat, I suspect that the couple of cases of severe vomiting I had, may relate to either eating too much, or eating at the wrong time, or both. So I think that if I'm more careful in the future, I can avoid those occurrences. Overeating is definitely bad, since Ozempic - as I heard it described - "slows down the movement of food through your digestive system, which leads to a feeling of fullness". That effect apparently being part of how/why Ozempic leads to weight loss. But that also suggests that you have to be really careful about not eating too much or you might overload your system in a way that exacerbates the side effects. My subject feeling is also that timing is an issue: I think that eating late makes it more likely that the bad side effects will occur. I'm trying to shift to making lunch my largest meal of the day, and then eating a very light dinner, and preferably earlier than in past years. Time will tell if this theory is right or not, but it's where I'm leaning at the moment.
bilsbie 3y ago
How long does the vomiting last if you have a bad reaction? More than a day?
- mindcrime 3y ago
  Speaking for myself, the pattern has been like this on the occasions that I've had a really severe case of vomiting: At some point I start noticing an intense "bloat" / gas feeling - with lots of burping and farting - as well as possibly some nausea and diarrhea. This will last for a few hours. Maybe 3 or 4? I wasn't keeping notes unfortunately. Then, at some point I'll just have a sudden urge to vomit (it comes on fast) where I'm lucky to make it to the bathroom to expel everything into the toilet. The actual vomiting last 2-3 minutes, after which I go back to feeling relatively normal, other than slightly drained feeling, and that slightly acid-scarred feeling in my throat. The worst part, in many ways, is cleaning up afterwards. Even though I've made it to the bathroom both times this has happened, the stream of vomit is so intense that I can't necessarily keep it all in the toilet. When I said "power vomiting" that was no joke. So inevitably some winds up on the floor, the wall beside the toilet, my clothes (if I'm wearing any), etc. Getting the bathroom clean and back to smelling normal is... not fun.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago

Of course everyone's struggle is personal. For me, I have been listening to the Maintenance Phase podcast, reading Aubrey Gordon's new book, and learning that a lot of what we hold as fact or "common sense" about weight loss is untrue, that individual bodies respond very differently to the same diet and exercise schedule, and that a lot of the ideas around fatness are rooted in a cultural anti-fatness that views fatness as a personal failing, rather than another parameter of the body like height or hair color. This has helped me learn to simply be happy with my size. Our bodies are not all meant to be skinny like the people we see on TV or instagram. There is a natural variance even for people with healthy diets and good exercise routines. I can't enumerate everything that Aubrey Gordon shares in her excellent book, but I can say that learning to accept myself has been far more rewarding than constantly trying to chase weight loss schemes that only leave me back where I started. I feel confident and sexy now without any weight loss, and this is leading more people to be very obviously more attracted to me (because confidence is sexy!). I realized I never needed to lose weight to be attractive, I needed to accept myself for who I am. I would urge anyone considering these treatments, whose lifelong effects we still do not understand, to learn about anti-fatness and how we have all been misled in to believing that everyone is supposed to be skinny. Here's a great article from Aubrey to get started: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148169767/anti-fatness-keeps-fat-people-on-the-margins-says-aubrey-gordon https://www.npr.org/2023/01/12/1148169767/anti-fatness-keeps... Finally I want to say that if anyone is just going to come in here and say being fat is unhealthy, or repeat any of the common tropes about weight loss, you're not going to get anywhere with me. The whole point of Aubrey's work is that these so-called common sense ideas are so deeply held in our society that few have really questioned them, and it takes more than a cursory examination to try to make sense of how we got here. Repeating the basic ideas does nothing to advance this conversation. If you must respond, read the article above before criticizing the basics of what I am saying. Aubrey can explain it far better than I can.

Georgelemental 3y ago
> that these so-called common sense ideas are so deeply held in our society that few have really questioned them Yes, these issues have been studied and questioned. In traditional hunter-gatherer societies (people whose diet and lifestyle matches what humans evolved for), obesity is almost unheard of, as are diabetes and other metabolic diseases. But when these same hunter-gatherers adopt a modern lifestyle and diet, their rates of these diseases go way up. From this evidence, we can conclude that obesity is not a purely natural phenomenon, but caused in part by modern lifestyles.

mgarfias 3y ago

I take 2mg ozempic, worst thing was starting (lower dose) and with any stomach upset, I get nasty sulphur smelling burps. It’s gross, but didn’t last.