I am a health care provider who misplaced 25 kilos on Ozempic — then stop. Here is what occurred after I finished taking it.

• The makers of Ozempic and Mounjaro say you want to take their medication long run to keep up outcomes.

• However there have not been long-term research of those medication but, and it is potential they’re flawed.

• One physician is conducting his personal self-experiment in quitting Ozempic. To this point, it is going effectively.

This as-told-to essay is predicated on a dialog with a 42-year-old physician working within the Midwest who lately stopped taking his injectable GLP-1 remedy, semaglutide. This physician has requested to stay nameless. Enterprise Insider has verified his id, medical license, and weight reduction. The dialog’s been edited for size and readability.

Once I began taking Ozempic simply over two years in the past, I knew I did not need to be on this drug for all times.

I am a health care provider, so I do know all about how folks can develop tolerances to the drugs they take, and I apprehensive that over time, my physique may develop into much less delicate to this medication, making it much less efficient for blood sugar management and for weight reduction. Moreover, I felt somewhat bizarre in regards to the thought of messing with my hormones indefinitely.

I’ve misplaced about 25 kilos on this drug, and whereas I might most likely stand to lose a couple of extra, I really feel fairly glad with my progress. I’ve undergone DexaFit physique scans that present the extent of dangerous visceral fat round my liver and intestines has gone down, whereas I’ve gotten stronger, and developed extra lean (muscle) mass! Win-win.

So, over the course of the previous a number of months, I’ve developed and executed a plan to wean myself off of semaglutide, the diabetes drug most individuals know higher by its model title, Ozempic.

To this point, my outcomes have been actually good, however I am nonetheless protecting shut tabs on my physique weight, and general well being, to see if I could must readjust my plan.

It is solely been two months since I stop Ozempic, so I feel it is nonetheless somewhat too early to say definitively that this plan labored. I might nonetheless be within the honeymoon part, and it is doubtless there’s nonetheless some hint quantity of semaglutide in my physique, serving to regulate my blood sugar and suppress my urge for food, just a bit bit.

My outdated urge for food is again, however I am not snacking like I used to

I used to be nervous that coming off this hormone-mimicking drug would trigger my weight to rebound, because it has for so many others in clinical trials. I’ve struggled with my dimension since I was a kid. Might two years actually be sufficient of a reset for me?

Now I attempt to weigh myself frequently and keep busy all through the day so I am not fixating on meals. I’ve a quantity in my head — if my weight begins to creep past that digit, I will know it is time to begin remedy once more.

If I am being completely trustworthy with you, I undoubtedly prevented the size for a number of days after Thanksgiving. I didn’t maintain again on that turkey! It’s good to get pleasure from meals once more. I can inform that my outdated urge for food has returned, and my starvation is way stronger than once I was on the remedy. Again then, I could not even make room for sides like somewhat inexperienced salad with dinner. However, I’ve observed that, for no matter purpose, I nonetheless eat much less now than I used to, earlier than Ozempic. I’m usually in a position to subsist on a modest breakfast, small to medium-sized lunch, after which dinner with the household, which is normally my greatest meal of the day, and a time to attach with my spouse and my youngsters.

I really feel like I do not want snacks and treats like I used to, and my three sq. meals final me by way of the day. Possibly my abdomen bought barely smaller? Possibly I’ve simply been actually busy these days. Possibly it is a mixture of a bunch of various components, together with a re-set of among the areas of my mind that management my urge for food and my conduct. Who is aware of.

One surprising perk of coming off semaglutide has been that I really feel a lot extra energetic and upbeat than I did whereas I used to be taking the drug. This might all be in my head, however I really feel like I had extra low-energy days once I was on Ozempic, and I might typically be completely worn out come 8 or 9 p.m. My spouse additionally stated it appeared like I used to be extra damaging, usually, and that she’d by no means seen me fairly so down, virtually like I had dysthymia, a kind of gentle despair. On the time, I chalked this phenomenon as much as the common ups and downs of on a regular basis life, coping with household and with work. However I am recognizing now that it is potential that the delicate quantity of additional energy I eat lately is boosting my spirits, or maybe there’s one thing else we do not completely perceive about how the drug works that negatively impacted my temper. Or, this all might don’t have anything to do with the drug in anyway, and I am simply feeling somewhat extra pep in my step in the intervening time.

Coming off semaglutide meant beginning one other metabolism-regulating drug, and upping my dose of metformin too

The very first thing you need to learn about my maintenance-after-Ozempic plan is that I have been on the diabetes drug metformin because the starting of this expertise, and I lately upped my dose from 1,000 mg to 1,500 day by day, in an effort to raised keep my weight reduction. Studies show that people who find themselves on a mix of Ozempic and metformin, or Ozempic and insulin, are likely to lose extra weight, and we all know that metformin by itself typically prompts a couple of kilos of weight reduction (although, not close to as a lot as GLP-1 medication like Ozempic.) I am hopeful that the drug will assist me keep the progress I’ve remodeled the previous two years. It is actually a way more inexpensive choice in the long term, costing simply pennies a day.

The opposite factor I began doing, roughly two months earlier than the tip of my time on Ozempic, was I began taking rapamycin. It is an immune-modulating drug that is additionally well-liked with longevity biohackers and anti-aging scientists. It is potential that rapamycin, which additionally has some modest impact on metabolism, may assist me keep my new dimension. We will see.

Possibly I will get fortunate and this metformin-plus-rapamycin technique will probably be sufficient. However it’s additionally potential that I will should cycle again on to GLP-1 medication generally, adopting a use-as-needed approach, like Oprah. I might even be OK with that.

If in case you have a narrative you’d wish to share about quitting Ozempic or one other GLP-1 drug, attain out to this reporter at hbrueck@businessinsider.com

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