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by mainedotpy 1091 days ago
I personally take ozempic and have also prescribed it to ~150+ patients for diabetes. I've maybe had to stop it in ~8 patients for tolerability issues.

We unfortunately usually dont get to hear many chiming in to say that they tolerated it just fine. I do (2mg/week), down 45lbs.

Being heavy is really bad for you. Don't be so quick to write it off d/t the possibility of vomiting.

2 comments

I will step in to be the "it's not so bad" coming forward.

I get stomach upset and a bit of reflux when I overeat, but that makes total sense given the goal of the medicine.

Honestly the metformin I was prescribed at the same time as semaglutide makes me feel worse more consistently, and even that is tolerable.

I say go for it OOP. It shouldn't cause any permanent damage trying it out.

I get stomach upset and a bit of reflux when I overeat,

I suspect that the couple of cases of severe vomiting I had, may relate to either eating too much, or eating at the wrong time, or both. So I think that if I'm more careful in the future, I can avoid those occurrences.

Overeating is definitely bad, since Ozempic - as I heard it described - "slows down the movement of food through your digestive system, which leads to a feeling of fullness". That effect apparently being part of how/why Ozempic leads to weight loss. But that also suggests that you have to be really careful about not eating too much or you might overload your system in a way that exacerbates the side effects. My subject feeling is also that timing is an issue: I think that eating late makes it more likely that the bad side effects will occur. I'm trying to shift to making lunch my largest meal of the day, and then eating a very light dinner, and preferably earlier than in past years. Time will tell if this theory is right or not, but it's where I'm leaning at the moment.

How long does the vomiting last if you have a bad reaction? More than a day?
Speaking for myself, the pattern has been like this on the occasions that I've had a really severe case of vomiting:

At some point I start noticing an intense "bloat" / gas feeling - with lots of burping and farting - as well as possibly some nausea and diarrhea. This will last for a few hours. Maybe 3 or 4? I wasn't keeping notes unfortunately. Then, at some point I'll just have a sudden urge to vomit (it comes on fast) where I'm lucky to make it to the bathroom to expel everything into the toilet. The actual vomiting last 2-3 minutes, after which I go back to feeling relatively normal, other than slightly drained feeling, and that slightly acid-scarred feeling in my throat.

The worst part, in many ways, is cleaning up afterwards. Even though I've made it to the bathroom both times this has happened, the stream of vomit is so intense that I can't necessarily keep it all in the toilet. When I said "power vomiting" that was no joke. So inevitably some winds up on the floor, the wall beside the toilet, my clothes (if I'm wearing any), etc. Getting the bathroom clean and back to smelling normal is... not fun.