Disclaimer: This article is merely a depiction of my personal experience with the drug coupled with some research that I have done on it. I am not a medical practitioner and I have taken it at my own risk, as part of the journalistic research needed for this article. This drug should not be used without the guidance of a medical practitioner and should only be prescribed to people with a BMI of 27 and higher. This drug causes serious side effects and can cause long term damage to your health such as, but not limited to, thyroid cancer, pancreatitis and kidney damage.
This article was published in the September 2024 print Issue of INSTYLE Germany magazine, in the German language, in a redacted version.
Ozempic hit the world of the rich and famous harder than the Epstein, Weinstein and Diddy scandals all rolled into one. It has been labeled a “miracle drug” and has birthed whole new notions in our language, such as “Ozempic face”. But what exactly is Ozempic? What does it do, how does it feel to take it and, most importantly, does it work? I took the drug for six weeks, made some absolutely fascinating discoveries, suffered the nasty side effects but also familiarized myself with some of the research that has been conducted on it and cross-examined these findings with my own experience, here.
Getting my hands on Ozempic was a mission in itself. It began with a 5-week waiting list at my local pharmacy in Vienna, for two 1mg Ozempic pens, explained by the pharmacist as being due to a rationing of the drug, per pharmacy in Austria, of only 1 or 2 pens a week. If you are on a waiting list with 25 people before you – well, do the math. Even pharmacies on the outskirts of Vienna were in the same situation. Patience is key.
Ozempic was primarily developed and has been used for almost 18 years by diabetics. While opponents of the drug have issued many calls for concern, the fact that we have 18 years of experience of people all over the world taking it without growing a third leg (you get my jist), this is a pretty good indicator that the drug does not have any horrific, fatal side effects. Contrasting to this information, I would recommend you take a look at some of the other potions and powders that have been marketed and approved as being safe “diet pills” in the past, such as: amphetamines (pulled due to their extremely addictive nature), Aminorex (pulled for causing pulmonary hypertension), Fenfluramine (pulled for causing heart valvopathy), Ephedrine which I think I took myself in my early twenties (pulled for causing cardiac and psychological problems), amongst others.
By the time I finally received my Ozempic pen (Ozempic is dispensed in a small pen that you add a tiny needle head to), I was again rather disheartened, after reading the instructions five times and being left none the wiser of how the hell to use it. I had to call a friend to figure out how to dispense only 0,5mg of Ozempic from a 1mg dose per week pen (there are tables online that tell you how many “clicks” of the pen you need for your dose) and finally jabbed myself with it in the stomach. BIG MISTAKE. According to Tik Tok (yes, I dispensed my medical advice from a social media platform), jabbing yourself in the stomach heightens the risk of the side effects being especially nasty. And nasty they were.
Ozempic must be taken once weekly during the same day of the week and more or less at the same time. I took my first dose Saturday morning. By Tuesday I felt like I was on the brink of death. The worst thing was the constant nausea (although no vomiting), coupled with weakness and constant fatigue. I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t think of food. Interestingly, I developed an artificial lump in my throat that felt like an actual lump that would block any food from going down, even if I tried to eat it. The mere thought of food made me nauseous. I was grey in the face; I was too tired to drive. Thankfully, I am not the one for suffering and that Tuesday I had an IV. After that, all the symptoms subsided. By the end of the week, I was down almost 4 Kilos: clear overdose. The weight loss per month on Ozempic, should be between 1 to 2 kilograms a month in the first month and maybe double that the following month as you increase your dosage. Let’s also keep in mind that I was far from obese to begin with, at 48 kilos and 150cms.
While the artificial throat lump feeling remains to this day, the symptoms gradually dwindled during the following week (I reduced by dose to 0,25mg as I wasn’t going to risk going through the hell of the previous week again) and injected it into my thigh, instead of my stomach. By the third week, I had amped the dosage back to 0,7 mg and the side effects completely disappeared. By the third week, I was down to 42 kilos. At week 4 I reduced the dosage back to 0,5mg because although at some point I thought I would plateau at 42 kilos (most people do plateau after using the drug for a long, long time), the weight had crept down to 41 kilos and I was afraid I would disappear.
It should be noted that one of the prognosed, negative, long-term side effects of Ozempic use may be related to its effect on muscle mass. Basically, while it eats away at your fat first, if there isn’t much fat to begin with, it moves on to eating your muscles, especially if you do not stick to a high fibre diet and exercise regularly, while you are taking it. Medical practitioners strongly recommend exercise for patients taking the drug, but let me tell you that this is easier said than done. I did manage to get some of my HIIT workout and 30-minute runs in (previously, HIIT workouts and 60-minute runs were no problem for me). But very few. The fatigue is quite overwhelming and makes it very very hard to maintain workouts, at least in my case. Moreover, the long-term effects of the Ozempic eating your muscle mass, are pretty dire: studies show that weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, catalyse the onset of frailty within months, instead of years. Without muscle mass you are prone to a plethora of medical problems and diseases such as osteoporosis.
Let’s quickly deviate to what Ozempic actually is and how it works, before we turn to some of the more “interesting” side effects I began experiencing.
The active ingredient in Ozempic is semaglutide, a peptide that has been engineered to mimic a hormone which occurs naturally in the body (GLP-1). During off-label use, it was discovered, that the drug leads to an increased speed of satiation (feeling full). This lead to the development of its sister drug, Wegovy. As stated by Novo Nordisk's PR representative, Burson Global, "Ozempic® (semaglutide 1.0 mg) and Wegovy® (semaglutide 2.4 mg) are two different products, both containing the active ingredient semaglutide in different dosages. While Ozempic® is approved exclusively for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, Wegovy® is approved for the treatment of obesity. The two products are not interchangeable and were investigated in separate and distinct study programs in different indication areas and underwent separate regulatory review processes. The use of Ozempic® in any other indication, including weight management, is an off-label use and may currently jeopardize the availability of Ozempic® for people with type 2 diabetes."
It is also supposed to slow down the speed by which food travels through your gut and thereby keeps you feeling full, longer. Interestingly, it was believed previously that Ozempic works primarily within the gut, whereas research is now showing, that it works primarily in your brain – and this is where we find pandora’s box when it comes to Ozempic.
Probably 3 weeks into my Ozempic journey, I realized that I hadn’t hat a sip of alcohol in weeks. I was never much of a drinker and have always been against alcohol use, but age, and the stress of daily life, had got me enjoying my vodka sodas a little too much. More frequently than my younger self would have liked. When this first occurred to me, I didn’t think much of it and simply associated it with the normal, desired effect that the drug was having on my body: alcohol was high in calories, and Ozempic didn’t like calories. Additionally, I am a sweet tooth. Milk chocolate of any kind, at any time – gimme. I frequently have ravenous, chocolate splurging fits and frequently crave sugar, especially in the morning. All of that completely disappeared. I opened our “schoki-drawer” looked in it, and walked away. If I had a bite of something sweet, it felt a little like I was repulsed by it. The disinterest in sugar encompassed sweet drinks and juices, too.
I began consciously processing the sudden disinterest in alcohol and sugar in my head. Furthermore, it became clear that the portions I had been eating up to this point, were too big. Ozempic has the beauty of allowing you to eat, but sending you the “I’m full now” signal already after you have eaten a quarter of what is on your plate. Sometimes even after a few bites, especially if the food on your plate is fried or processed. The drug had a profound effect on me. It made me more mindful of what I was eating and drinking, how I was eating and how much I was eating. It made me reconsider my past eating and drinking behaviors and brought me to the conclusion that once I stopped taking the drug, I would stick to eating only a quarter of my usual portions, leave out all processed sugars, stick to a high fibre diet and not eat after 18:00.
There is more. Once it became evident that the drug was having an effect on the wiring of our brains, some fascinating findings emerged on its effect on addiction. A number of studies in rats have shown, that drugs such as Ozempic significantly reduce alcohol, nicotine and even opioid intake. This extends to shopping addiction, nail biting and other obsessive-compulsive behaviors too. The explanation is simple: drugs such as Ozempic are eradicating the pleasure you feel from ingesting harmful substances, making them less rewarding for your brain by hampering the excretion of dopamine when you engage in them.
Unfortunately, because the above findings support that the drug is having an effect on our brains, it may mean that the drug may be hampering our motivation too and could exacerbate depression in those that already have it. In fact, some studies indicate that people with a history of any mental health disorder find that these medication types exacerbate the problem, which is a reason for why they are not recommended for these groups. There is a warranted fear that has been put forward by its proponents when it comes to eating disorders especially, as the medication is the most effective method for self-starvation known to man and must not fall into the hands of people suffering from them.
Ozempic was developed by a Danish company called Novo Nordisk, who hold a patent for the drug until 2031. In September, the company was announced as being the most valuable company in Europe. Personally, I feel that this valuation is warranted. Why? Because Novo Nordisk is at war with obesity. As the child of a clinically obese parent, and the grandchild of a woman who suffered a debilitating stroke as a result of her obesity, I have seen the damage and toll that obesity takes on people and know, that food addiction, due to the widespread availability of processed foods and sugar, is maybe one of the greatest threat, humanity is facing today.
Notably, there is another possible psychological side effect that I would like to address. While I cannot say for sure, that this was a result or side effect of the drug or not, it is still important to mention it for the sake of this article. I felt that during my time on Ozempic, I stopped caring as much about certain things, and found it easier to make changes. For example, I had a client that was making me unhappy, so I stopped working for them, although it meant a significant decrease in my income. I was also having some issues with a colleague, so I ceased all communication with her. Generally, I like to refer to my time on Ozempic as my “zero fucks given, come what may” era – one that I greatly enjoyed and which was very comfortable in. It was like suddenly, life became devoid of worrying about the future. To the detriment of my husband, I also lost interest in sex. While I was never a very sexual person to begin with (I have always been more interested in money than in anything else), it may well be, that my time on Ozempic may have been the nail in the coffin of sexuality in my marriage.
I began tapering off the drug during the following two weeks, meaning, reducing the dose by halving it every week. At week 6, I was down to a final weekly dose of 0.15 (which is hardly a dose at all). “Tapering” is a method used to stop the body from being forced into sudden withdrawal and was recommended to me by friends. My weight had now levelled off at 40 kilos. While this may be a scary number for some, one needs to take into consideration that my height is 150cm. Strictly speaking, I stopped growing at the age of 11 and am now shrinking – the weight heigh ratio is what needs to be kept in mind here.
The week after administering my final dose, I travelled to a renowned medical practice in Switzerland to test their Bio-Molecular/Longevity Programme. As part of my stay, I first underwent extensive blood work, was equipped with a glucose chip had my epigenetic factors tested and informed the medical team of my Ozempic trial. During my numerous consultations with the medical team that followed, I learned the following: my bloodwork was excellent, so were my glucose levels. While I do have some deficiencies in Omega 6 and Omega 3, the only concerning negative value, which was definitely a result of my Ozempic use, was my muscle mass, which was down to a very very low number. This was a side effect indicated by research and came as absolutely no surprise. To counter this, I was recommended a very high protein diet by the nutritional specialists as well as weight training to re-build muscle mass. Regarding the 40-kilo weight – this was a topic that was also discussed between myself and the medical team, with an emphasis on my wish to try and remain at this weight post Ozempic use, and what impact this would have on my health. I would like to emphasize the state of my mental health at this point, which I believe is detrimental to this article: I had never felt so good in my life. Since the Ozempic trial, I was keeping to my no sugar, high protein, no carbohydrate, 18:6 fasting diet. My athletic prowess was back to its former levels, and I was alternating my days between 8 kilometer runs and HIIT workout. My skin was flawless, I wasn’t drinking, and all my vices in general, remained well at bay. This status quo was also relayed to the medical team and here is the feedback I received: a happy patient is more likely to stick to healthier habits such as diet and exercise. Therefore, seeing as the low number indicated by the scale wasn’t having a negative impact on my health as a whole, I was free to remain this way, as long as I tried to gain more muscle mass.
I am now at 4 weeks post Ozempic trial and I have to admit, that things aren’t all that rosy anymore. While I am still able to keep to the stringent fasting, diet, no-sugar and exercise regime and am able to maintain the 40-kilo weight, hunger has made an unpleasantly stealthy return into my life. But most interestingly, so has vice in at all its shapes and forms. I am back to the slew of vodka sodas, and I am finding it more and more difficult to stay off the sugar and carbohydrates, albeit their consumption makes me feel increasingly unwell afterwards. Moreover, the thought of gaining back the weight I lost, is causing anxiety and every food related slip-up (I had McDonalds last week and a tiramisu for dessert yesterday) is now intertwined with feelings of guilt. How much I love my thinner frame, is reinforced by other people’s constant compliments on how good I look. While I know that these are well-meant, they are fueling the growing anxiety on regaining the lost weight.
The most positive outcome of the experiment: my decision and the drug’s support when it come to my ability to cut sugar out of my life completely. A life without sugar is a life better lived. My skin is flawless, the cravings have disappeared and my overall wellbeing is better. The absence of sugar may also play a large factor in my ability to stay at my new, current weight.
Life was definitely easier and better on Ozempic. Honestly, if I could, I would choose to stay on it forever (which diabetics do, in fact). And, while I am convinced, from personal experience, that drug significantly impacts our brains and has a positive effect on addiction related behavior, the fact that I am consciously admitting that life was somehow better and easier while I was taking it, must surely be a cause for some concern.
We must keep in mind that human beings have a history of replacing one addiction for another in hopes of weaning themselves off a previous, more dangerous vice. Heroin for methadone, cigarettes for nicotine and now bad eating habits and unhealthy diets for Ozempic. While Ozempic brings with it a plethora of very positive outcomes, it may well be just that – a way to replace one artificially gained vice for yet another…