By Angela Sanford
After losing a significant amount of weight, I was asked by a friend, “When you speak about your weight loss, you never mention that you’re taking Ozempic. Why not?” My response was simple: “I don’t want people to assume that’s why I am on Ozempic.” There’s a great deal of stigma in our culture and having more than my share of experience with being labelled, this was not one I wanted to add. Just over a year ago I had a full melt down in my family doctor’s office and not because of my weight. I had several ongoing medical symptoms, some I’d been experiencing since childhood, that no one had yet been able to “cure.”
I was frustrated, crying, a complete mess and between my family doctor and a naturopath (a resource that has been instrumental in my health journey), doctors carried out repeated tests, including a full DNA sample, and could not determine what my underlying condition was. So, my family doctor offered to refer me to a diabetic specialist who had an extensive wait list. In the meantime, the doctor prescribed Ozempic, noting the specialist would likely do the same in due time, and for the next two months I saw no change in my conditions, nor did I lose any weight. My rashes, hair loss, lack of nail growth, numbness, dehydration, and fatigue continued, and my weight remained constant. Yet, my blood sugar level was normal, my cholesterol low, my blood pressure low….. nothing added up.
When the call came for my consultation, the specialist asked a few questions and by the end of the conversation assured me that I was “insulin resistant’ and that she could indeed “cure” me. The first step was to take me off Ozempic and start me on a high fat diet, reincorporating dairy products to my already tenuous regime. I was baffled, but it worked! Within weeks I was seeing huge improvements AND I was losing weight – it was truly falling away like butter off a hot knife. Simultaneously, I all but completely cut sugars from my diet, though I was not an intense consumer of sugar anyhow, having cut them out over the two years previous in hopes of it being an underlying cause.
About eight weeks later, the doctor did indeed prescribe Ozempic in a minimal dosage since many people have significant side effects upon starting the drug. Slowly, my dosage increased only reaching a full dose this spring. For a short period, I was unable to fill my prescription, due to a shortage of the drug, and I witnessed people commenting on social media about those taking Ozempic who were doing so only for weight loss. There seemed to be a visible angst for anyone who chose this route – exactly the reason why I hadn’t shared my journey, until now, despite it being prescribed for a medical condition. I did not want to be judged by those who did not know my journey.
Ozempic has provided my body with the hormone needed to stimulate my pancreas to release insulin, which over time, sooner than later, would have led to prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes. Had I placed a bet on the result when meeting with the specialist, a year ago, I would have lost, but luckily, I am the big winner overall.
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