My year of living painfully

There is no such thing as a free lunch!

It was a year ago in October when I had to stop taking Ozempic after severe pain developed throughout my abdominal area. Thankfully I had only been on it for a few months or the damage it did to me might have been far more severe.

It all started when I was listening to the Glenn Beck radio show and one of the co-hosts, a diabetic, described his experience with Ozempic. According to him it was a miracle drug that allowed him to eat whatever he wanted without a soaring blood sugar.

As a Type 2 diabetic for over 30 years this sounded too good to be true, which of course it was. Warnings should be emblazoned on every pharmaceutical product in bright flashing lights: There is no such thing as a Free Lunch!

To be fair, it actually did work as advertised. For a few short months, I was able to eat all the high carb foods that I love so much: Bread, Pasta, Rice, Fruit juice, Honey and other sweets, etc. –All the things that had caused my weight to balloon to 325 pounds by age 40 and precipitated my Diabetes in the first place. I even went back to the local Frozen Yogurt store for the first time in years and made my own Sundae in celebration.

My celebration was short-lived. I developed severe constipation like I had never had in my 73 years and a whole menagerie of other symptoms that seemed to elude diagnosis, despite having every test imaginable and consulting various specialists.

At different times I convinced myself that I had a blockage of the large intestine, gall stones and a stomach ulcer, or worse: cancer of any of those organs! I had an ultrasound, X-rays, a CAT scan, a colonoscopy and a endoscopy all of which were inconclusive.

What made matters more frustrating was that most doctors I consulted seemed oblivious that Ozempic could cause any long-term damage. The oft-repeated comment was that since I had stopped taking the drug in October it was out of my system and the problems should clear up. The drug makers brainwashing of doctors is quite effective!

The symptoms mostly have disappeared, but it took most of the last year to slowly, glacially slowly, recover. Luckily I never had pain so severe that it prevented me from pursuing an active lifestyle, in fact, being active seemed to be the best medicine by keeping your mind off the gnawing pain. On the other hand, the pain was with me almost every waking hour, and because it was undiagnosed, it was a constant source of worry.

Only in the last few weeks have I been able to wake up in the morning without the first thought being about the pain in my belly. For anyone who has not dealt with this kind of chronic pain, it may be hard to fully appreciate how much this can wear you down.

Since it was undiagnosed, there is always the thought in the back of your mind that this might be the first sign of a mortal illness. Now that it has finally passed, I am beginning to think that I may be around for a while longer– giving me a new lease on life as it were.

So here is my best guess of what happened, educated by the good people in the Facebook group “Victims of Ozempic,” that I joined last year. Ozempic (and its cousins Wegovy and other products) basically work by slowing down your digestive system so that food lingers in your belly longer and thus reduces your hunger.

In some cases, such as mine, it can cause an actual paralysis of the digestive system that can have dire consequences. The technical term for this condition, Gastroparesis, was finally added as a warning label by the FDA last October, too late to warn me!

Although technically the term only refers to paralysis of the stomach, my experience leads me to believe that it can also paralyze other part of the digestive system, such as the large intestine, perhaps by affecting the Vagus nerve that regulates all that.

I was lucky. Many of the horror stories that I heard from the Ozempic victims I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Many have suffered from this condition for years now and are involved in class action lawsuits against the Danish manufacturer of the drug Novo Nordic.

Novo could afford to pay out a little for pain, suffering and worse. The company is on track to make about $40 billion in sales this year and the future seems bright. They recently announced plans for a $4.1 billion expansion of their plant in North Carolina.

In America especially, weight loss is big business. It is estimated that the potential market to put all the diabetics and overweight people in the country on these drugs is in the trillions. How we could ever afford such a thing is not explained, but the profits are locked in. Patients must remain on the drug indefinitely or they will regain any weight that they lose.

Complications such as mine are the fly in the ointment. It is estimated that 2 out of 3 people stop taking the drug within the first year because of side effects, but no worries, there is always another fat sucker coming along!

Some believe that these side effects are being overlooked by our notoriously freewheeling FDA. Are we looking at history repeating with another Fen Fen scandal, a much touted weight loss drug that was heavily promoted in the 1990s before being pulled from the market after 5 years when serious side effects were discovered?

From my experience the answer is yes. Although the drugs may do some good for those who are morbidly obese and can not lose weight any other way, the danger to the average person who just wants to lose a few pounds to look good in a swimsuit aren’t worth the risks.

Since the drug has now gone viral and is being sold on the black market to anyone who wants to lose weight without any medical supervision, the dangers are obvious, especially since there are better ways to lose weight without becoming addicted to an expensive and risky drug.

In my case, the same doctor who gave me a free sample of Ozempic like it was a party favor with no warnings, also got me started with a 24-hour glucose monitor. This was life changing, because for the first time I could see in real time what my eating habits were doing to my blood sugar.

By using the monitor to guide me on the type and overall quantity of what I was eating, I managed to lose 25 pounds in the last year! That takes me down a total of 80 pounds from my all-time high, and makes blood sugar control a lot easier.

After what I have learned in my year of living painfully, watching the continued growth of these drugs is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. While I have tried to warn people in every way I can, I find that many are hypnotized by the allure of easy weight loss, and believes, like I did, that the side effects will never happen to them.

Repeat after me: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!