Tirzepatide

[Racer_X]

I recently had this conversation with my doctor. He waited a number of years before prescribing it to patients, including those that were diabetic and pre-diabetic while he reviewed case histories and studies. About 4 years in he began supporting it.

He's seen tremendous positive results that far outweigh the potential side effects. Specifically: blood pressure improvements, cholesterol improvements, and heart improvements - the three big killers that aren't cancer yet are weight related. Not to mention the benefits it delivers to diabetic patients are the SAME that prevent people from becoming diabetic in the first place, leading to better life expectancy.

Ancillary benefits include cravings management - for example one of his patients struggled with alcoholism, going to the ER and requiring hospitalization for alcohol imbibing issues at a rate in excess of once a month. Since going on the drug, this patient has stopped drinking entirely.

Finally, there's also a long term (multi-year) taper plan that can be implemented. This requires a lot of effort and attention to manage. However, I'm aware of at least one patient that has managed to reduce from 15 weekly to 7.5 doses every 12 days without a spike in morbidity conditions.

It's popular because it's right. Ibuprofen is popular because it's better than aspirin and Tylenol for pain management. Scuba gear is popular because it's hard to dive to 100 feet by holding your breath.

If you're going to say "what is popular is not always right" - yeah, that true. But it's also true that what is popular is not always wrong, either. So it's meaningless without data behind it.

 

[pdwh]

I recently had this conversation with my doctor. He waited a number of years before prescribing it to patients, including those that were diabetic and pre-diabetic while he reviewed case histories and studies. About 4 years in he began supporting it.

He's seen tremendous positive results that far outweigh the potential side effects. Specifically: blood pressure improvements, cholesterol improvements, and heart improvements - the three big killers that aren't cancer yet are weight related. Not to mention the benefits it delivers to diabetic patients are the SAME that prevent people from becoming diabetic in the first place, leading to better life expectancy.

Ancillary benefits include cravings management - for example one of his patients struggled with alcoholism, going to the ER and requiring hospitalization for alcohol imbibing issues at a rate in excess of once a month. Since going on the drug, this patient has stopped drinking entirely.

Finally, there's also a long term (multi-year) taper plan that can be implemented. This requires a lot of effort and attention to manage. However, I'm aware of at least one patient that has managed to reduce from 15 weekly to 7.5 doses every 12 days without a spike in morbidity conditions.

It's popular because it's right. Ibuprofen is popular because it's better than aspirin and Tylenol for pain management. Scuba gear is popular because it's hard to dive to 100 feet by holding your breath.

If you're going to say "what is popular is not always right" - yeah, that true. But it's also true that what is popular is not always wrong, either. So it's meaningless without data behind it.

I'm a poster child for those improvements - weight, cholesterol, blood sugar, etc. I was actually pre-diabetic, on wegovy, and doing ok, then shortages. Without it, my blood sugar spiked and now I'm a type 2 diabetic. On mounjaro now (I have fewer side effects with it than the wegovy/oezempic one), and my last A1C was a 5.2 (which is completely normal). I'm not even on the max dose - only on 10 a week right now.

For me, it's definitely right, and my doctor and I have talked about tapering it as my weight improves to minimize the dose later. At my last annual physical I was able to drop 3 other prescriptions because of my health improvements, and when I added diving as a physical activity that didn't leave my knees/hips in pain, I dropped about 55 pounds in the last 10 months. BTW - even the GPL-1 inhibitors won't magic bullet weight loss without some sort of physical activity.

So which risk is higher? The weight, cardiac risk, and side effects of those other 3 drugs or this one single drug? That's a decision for each person and their doctor (assuming they've got one that listens to them and they trust - I do). For me, I'm on track to drop another 2-3 prescriptions by the end of the year. I should be down to one pill besides the mounjaro by December if I'm able to keep up the current rate of improvements.

Are there people using it that really shouldn't be? Of course there are - that's true with many drugs. I'm getting sick of ads for places that will get you GPL-1 drugs online because they're not interested in helping you find the best overall health plan for you. They're just selling the new shiny thing. Are pharmaceutical companies pushing it to make $$$? Of course they are. Does that mean it's a bad drug or the wrong choice for a lot of people who have been struggling with serious health issues for years? No, not at all.

It's effective. It works. It does have some very serious possible side effects that need to be considered and I'll be honest, a couple of them scare me. But so does dying of a heart attack before age 60, never seeing grandkids, and being stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, all of which are possible futures I was facing that I've seen in family members. Instead, I'm looking at doing my divemaster and instructor classes in the next year or two and spending my early retirement doing lake cleanup dives and conveying my passion for diving to others. Believe me, this is not what I had envisioned for this stage of my life and I'm quite happy about it.

 

[HamTrainChickenLaser]

Okay, thanks for the info on the nomenclature. I am aware millions are taking it. What is popular is not always right. Maybe these people never learned that the "easy way" often ends up being the hard way.


Already banned in some countries. Anyways from what I understand a lot of the harmful effects are being caused by improper nutrition. The same poor diet that got them to that point in the first place. So add in an appetite suppressant and you get malnutrition and all the nasty effects of that, in combination with the unknown long term effects? Horrible idea.

I've taken Wegovy for about a year and recently switched to Terzepatide because my weight loss had stalled completely. For reference, I've lost over 100 pounds five different times in my life using Weight Watchers- the "old fashioned" way. I've never been able to keep it off. The first time I lost in excess of a hundred pounds was at age 11 when I started going to Weight Watchers meetings with my dad- I went from 250 to 150. Since my early 30s I've been an avid runner and I run typically 3-5 times per week. I've run many ultramarathons, so I'm not sure that I'm the kind to take the easy way out of anything- I'm just trying to be the healthiest me that I can be. Mostly I've run trail 50K races, but I've run training runs of as much as 40 miles. I've run lots of marathons before I made my way up to ultras, and a handful of half-marathons and 5Ks and 10Ks.

I don't find either Wegovy or Zepbound to be a particularly good appetite suppressant. They both act on the GLP-1 hormone and that regulates both blood sugar and appetite but for me personally, it's still a battle with appetite. Neither medication has been anything close to a "magic bullet" or an easy way out but I am consistently losing weight so that's great for my health and my confidence. I work in sales so confidence is important! In the past I've been prescribed a true appetite suppressant- phentermine, but I didn't feel healthy while taking it even thought it killed my appetite dead. Medication is a curious thing- everyone responds a bit differently as our bodies are individual.

I worked as a health coach for nearly five years and in that job I got my board certification through NBHWC, and I can tell you definitively that the hundreds of clients with whom I worked have poured their heart and soul into eating the best that they can and exercising in a healthy and sustainable way. Each one of us can improve, and health coaching helps to set concrete steps to do that. Our understanding of the obesity problem isn't complete, and surely some folks are eating terribly and laying around on the couch getting fat. But most people who seek out a professional health coach at great personal expense are doing all that they can, and I think that it's important to recognize their struggle.

In the end, I think it's important to have a physician that you trust and who understands the issues at stake and the mechanisms of action of these weight loss drugs. I've been fortunate in that I've not had any serious side effects, but absolutely some folks do and discontinue the drugs as a result. It's a complex job to weigh the patient's entire health history with the risks of these drugs to reach the right conclusion. Fortunately more physicians these days understand the struggles of those who have dealt with obesity their entire lives and are empathetic to them and take an evidence-based approach to dealing with the issue.

 

[cobra269]

Update. Mounjaro is available but it's 5 mg/.05 mil injectable single dose for about $100 USD. We checked a few places. For us not a good deal at all. Can get Tirzepatide in the states for a lot less and comes premeasured ready to inject.