While the rest of the world stayed inside, missing work and time with family and friends, nurse Meredith Schorr spent the COVID-19 pandemic helping patients in the intensive care unit at Banner University Medical Center.
The stress, long hours, bad food, and PTSD medicines resulted in a 50 pounds weight gain for the 25-year old in a year and a half.
Schorr told People,
“I was pretty uncomfortable with the new weight that I had gained because it wasn’t where I normally sat.
I didn’t feel healthy, I was restricted in doing exercise.”
She went on to say that prior to the pandemic she was at a healthy weight and fit.
Image Credit: Wallpaper Flare
In February, 20222, a friend suggested she try Ozempic to help her lose weight.
Ozempic is approved by the FDA as a prescription to be taken by injection in the thigh, stomach or arm typically to help lower blood sugar in people with Type 2 diabetes. It’s otherwise known as semaglutide, a drug that stimulates insulin production while also targeting areas of the brain regulating appetite, according to the FDA.
Schorr reached out to a family nurse practitioner, who works with patients for weight loss, about Ozempic.
“She basically made it clear to me that I can use this drug as a tool to help me lose weight, and garner the motivation to improve my lifestyle habits. She made sure that I knew that the drug wasn’t just a crutch to rely on, I had to make lifestyle changes as well.”
Schorr got the prescription and had it filled by a compounding pharmacy. Without insurance, it cost her about $150 per month.
After her first injection, she experienced side effects of gas pains, cramping, nausea, and constiption.
“I seemed to have more severe side effects than most, but I later learned how to combat that with all sorts of non-pharmacological interventions, and also had to be prescribed Zofran. And then all of a sudden I started losing weight pretty drastically.”
Schorr dropped 50 lbs. in 11 months on Ozempic. However, she made the decision to stop taking the injections in January 2023 because she eventually wanted to start a family, something she couldn’t do while taking it. “I’m young and I’d rather not be on this medication for a long time. Plus, it’s expensive.”
After going off the medication, Schorr says she still felt the effects of the drug for a few weeks. Then her body began to adjust.
“Around that five to six week mark, I began to feel super hungry, and almost ravenous for a little bit,” Schorr said. She even regained 10 lbs of the 50 she had lost after staying off Ozempic for a couple of months.
Image Credit: Pixabay
PEOPLE spoke to Ania Jastreboff M.D., PhD., and obesity medicine physician scientist at Yale, about Ozempic, Wegovy and what happens when patients stop taking them.
“Not everybody needs the highest dose, but if you want to maintain the weight reduction that you achieved, you have to continue taking the medication. The reason for that is because obesity is a chronic disease,” she says. She also notes the drugs have not been tested for people who do not have Type 2 diabetes or chronic obesity
“If you have a patient who has high blood pressure, they have hypertension, and you start them on an antihypertensive medication, and their blood pressure improves, what would happen if you stopped that medication? Well, their blood pressure would go back up — and we’re not surprised. It’s the same with anti-obesity medications.”
Schorr added,
“I was super hungry all of a sudden. So after that phase, I was able to kind of see, ‘Oh, I gained 10 lbs. I don’t want to lose any progress that I had made.’ That’s the time where I tried to focus on healthier eating, choosing better snacks than what I may have in the past, making those conscientious choices to have a healthier lifestyle and diet, and that seems to have helped.”
Her appetite is normal these days and she’s focused on maintaining her lifestyle changes so she can continue to lose weight without the drug.
