This is my experience with wegovy semaglutide continued, if you didn’t see my original post I would suggest checking that out first as this is the follow up post that covers months 6-9 and the first month and a half post semaglutide.
In the original post I went through how the medication works, the side effects, helpful tips to know while taking the medication and my own personal experiences through it all. I left off at 6 months and promised a follow up, so here is the follow up.
I have also had a few people contact me and ask a few more questions and I wanted to address a few more of them, so lets get those out of the way right now.
Did I get heart palpitations?
My answer is not really, My adrenaline would jump a little after taking the shot but it didn’t last longer than an hour tops. If you are having heart palpitations with this medication then contact your doctor and make sure you are not dehydrated. Again, I am not a medical doctor but if you are having what seems out of the ordinary symptoms from this medication, contact your doctor about it. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Did my gallbladder issues ever come back and was it worth it even having experienced them?
My gallbladder issues luckily resolved with the help of sitting in really hot, hot tubs and drinking apple cider vinegar shots. So for me the pain was short lived and resolved fully. So for me this was not a deal breaker and I am still happy I did wegovy, especially for the lab results, which I will discuss later on in this post.
Were you scared to go off of the medicine? What’s next? How will you maintain?
Yes, the answer was and still is yes! I will go over this more later on in the post.
Months 6-9; my experience with wegovy semaglutide continued
Months 6 through 9 carried on fairly smoothly and were easier than some of the first months on this drug. My body got used to it but it still continued to do it’s job. I stayed on the 1.7 mg amount for the entirety of my journey on wegovy. I felt like it was an effective amount for me and didn’t feel the need to go up to 2.4 mg. Especially after the transition from 1 mg to 1.7 mg was so rough for me.
Did I continue to loose weight in months 6-9?
I continued to loose weight, even through the holidays. I was thankful to be on the medicine during this time because for the first time in years I was able to eat holiday foods and not stress or guilt myself over enjoying them. More about that healing process later in this post.
My weight loss slowed down monthly after 6 months, mostly because I had less weight to loose. I tried not to let this annoy me and trusted in the process as I was still loosing weight.
In the end of 9 months I lost right around 80 pounds since the beginning of this wegovy journey. 80 pounds feels pretty unreal to think about, that is about as much as my almost 11 year old son weighs! That is pretty crazy, and hard to believe. In my mind I still feel the same size as when I started, well maybe like 20 pounds lighter, but not 80! I will say that it feels a lot better on my joints and bones. I did a burpee during a workout the other day and I could really feel those negative 80 pounds, it almost felt too easy and dare I say fun.
Why did I stop taking wegovy?
Healthy BMI
First of all, I got to a point where I was at a healthy BMI. I could have lost an additional 15 pounds to be at a weight I was when I was younger but I also felt like I was at a healthy weight that I felt comfortable with. I will talk more about the positive mental health benefits from going on this drug did for me later, but Let me say now that me being able to not obsess over being at the top end of a healthy BMI and feeling good even though I could still lose 15 more pounds, speaks volumes about the healing that happened for me while on this medicine. It was about health and not an obsession for me.
Digestive Issues
At about month 7 I started to notice I was getting constipated. I tried to drink more water and fiber and stay on top of that but it didn’t seem to help like it use to. It felt like my intestines weren’t responding, like they weren’t getting the memo to start working. Interestingly, my super sensitive bladder started doing the same thing. I normally can’t hold my pee, hello, having 4 children, but I realized I wasn’t getting the signals to pee. Super random but I could go much longer without peeing my pants. Nice but also concerning when you feel like the signals aren’t coming through accurately.
So with my intestines, they felt full and I wanted to use the bathroom but it just wasn’t happening and after a few days and honestly, I think I went a week once, without being able to poop, I knew things were off and not working as they should. Not to mention when I did go, it hurt super bad. If you know, you know, not a pleasant experience.
I also had horrible stomach aches because of being backed up and gas not being able to pass, I would be completely debilitated at points. Not a fun feeling.
I was hesitant to take laxatives, because I was worried about it flushing out the medicine faster, silly reason maybe but none the less, that was my logic. Looking back I should have started taking them sooner because I think getting backed up had a compounded reaction and just got worse over time. I eventually had to take laxatives when I went off of the medication and it took about 5 days for them to begin working.
I recently read how this medication can cause bowel blockages and I believe had I stayed on it longer I would have ended up in the emergency room or doctors office with a bowel blockage. I listened to my body when I noticed my bowels weren’t responding normally. Being in my healthy weight at that point, made that decision a little easier to make.
The decision to stop was still really hard because I knew had I stayed on it I could have lost those extra 15 pounds, however, it’s a lesson in listening to your body and doing hard things when you feel something is off or not quite right.
Regulating my digestive system again.
Since being off of this medication about one and half months, I have had to work diligently to get my bowels working again. They still are having troubles regulating and I have had to use laxatives’ frequently to get things moving once again.
So, if you are on this medication and start to notice those side effects, take them seriously and talk to you doctor about it. A bowel blockage can be really dangerous and even deadly, so don’t push it aside. Also, don’t be dumb like me and don’t avoid laxatives’ if you need them.
Out of Pocket Cost
The last reason I stopped taking this medication was cost. I paid out of pocket for this medication for the entire time I took it because my insurance denied my coverage despite many appeals and an appeal board, see my first post for more information on that. I used the manufactures coupon but still paid $827 a month for this. So when I got down to a healthy BMI and the weight loss began to slow down, I decided that $827 wasn’t best spent on loosing 3 pounds a month when I was already at a healthy weight.
Those were the reasons I ended my journey with Wegovy at 9 months. I learned a lot going through this experience and I hope my experience can help someone else doing the same thing. I would do it again in a heart beat and it was worth the small issues I encountered along the way.
Going off Wegovy.
As I mentioned before I was terrified to go off of this medication. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to maintain my weight and I would go right back to the state I was in before I took it, which was desperate to regain my health and all of the logical, hard working options I had tried were failing me because of my insulin resistance and PCOS.
I also felt like I had done a lot of healing with my mental health when it came to food, I’ll talk about that more below. So I was scared to go back into that mental space I had been in for years, filled with a lot of guilt and shame over food and exercise. I remember at one point I declared that “I didn’t deserve to eat food because I had PCOS and I wasn’t allowed that luxury by society or my broken body” that should give you a little hint into the dark places I have been over the years with weight and health struggles.
So, I was really scared about going back into those mental spaces. To be honest, I am still scared but walking into it with hope and healthy habits for mental, emotional and physical health and I think things are going to be ok. In fact, I know they will be and if I need to go down this road again in the future I have prepared more self compassion for myself than I have had in the past.
How was it going off of wegovy? (my experience with Wegovy semaglutide continued)
To go off of this medication, you just stop taking it, No need to wean yourself off, you just don’t take the injections anymore. The first week I didn’t take the shot, my body felt achy and I got head aches for 2-3 days, my body was used to taking it every week and when I didn’t it, I had to adjust. Any person who has had hormonal shifts, it feels like that. I did get weepy for about a week, where everything seem to make me tear up and I felt overwhelmed. I think this was my hormones adjusting to the semaglutide (synthetic hormone) leaving my body.
Did my appetite return after going off wegovy?
My appetite did not return for a few weeks after taking the shot. This medication can hang around in the intestines for a while before it’s fully gone and my appetite slowly increased.
I slowly began to regain my appetite and ability to eat more. I still cannot eat as much as I used to be able to eat, which a great thing. However, I can eat enough to nourish myself. Even though my stomach shrunk down drastically from the months of really small portions so I feel sick when I eat until I am full or push past that feeling but I can eat more than when I was on the medication.
I am not going to lie, that scared me really bad at first because I was worried about gaining weight back rapidly. However, with a bigger appetite came more energy! I really mean tons more energy! I hadn’t realized how much energy I was lacking while on this medication and would have to ration my activities while on wegovy so I would take breaks and recoup. Therefore, I had to pick and choose what I would use my energy on and I took a lot of rests.
With a bigger appetite comes more ENERGY! (My experience with wegovy semaglutide continued)
When my energy started coming back, I took on big house projects I didn’t have the energy for before, like carpeting my basement stairs in one day. I committed to more physical activities aside from walking which I did throughout this whole journey. I was able to do HIIT (high intensity interval training) workouts again without paying the price for the intensity. So that feels really good and I am extra grateful for energy again.
What did my lab work look like after? (my experience with wegovy semaglutide continued)
I attended an insurance health screening a few weeks after I came off the medication, where they checked my weight, my cholesterol and triglycerides. I compared my scores with the ones from the previous year and my cholesterol had gone down 188 points, putting it well within the healthy range. My triglycerides had come down 186 points and are now well within the healthy range as well. I just can’t believe that I got those numbers down so drastically by being on this medication. My weight showed around 80 pounds lost. Just wild! It makes me so thankful for medication that helped that to happen for me.
This medicine helped me heal mentally and emotionally from food related guilt and shame.
This medicine really helped reshape my relationship with food and took away a lot of the guilt and shame that I didn’t fully realize I still had with food. I have worked for years with my battle with PCOS to overcome disordered eating, over exercising and not feeling worthy to eat. Crazy coming from a food blogger but those are battles I had to fight with my PCOS journey, so I was surprised to see I still had a long way to go when it came to not feeling guilt and shame with eating certain foods.
Being on the medicine was the first time I went through a New Years without weight resolutions and without beating myself up over my holiday consumptions even though they were strictly monitored in the past. I didn’t make extreme ultimatums or take on extreme dieting or exercise. and was content with my body, happy I enjoyed the holidays and was focused on other reachable goals.
I have always lived my life as “reformed perfectionist” meaning I am still a perfectionist but I have experience enough life to know I can’t do everything perfectly and I am okay with that. However, I still attack personal goals with hyper-focus. So, PCOS can cause a lot of emotional and mental damage because it isn’t something you can maintain control of fully in all stages of life. The math doesn’t always add up and for a brain like mine that is really difficult. Especially when I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to educate and study food, nutrition and becoming a healthier and better version of myself. So this drug taught me to not hyper-focus on my image and a number on scale but instead my health and how I felt.
This past year I enjoyed everything and came away with positive memories and no guilt. It was completely fantastic and if you are someone who has battled the same battles, you know what I am taking about and this medicine really did wonders for my healing mentally and emotionally in that area.
What does the future look like off of Wegovy? (My experience with wegovy semaglutide continued)
If I had a crystal ball I would tell you, but I don’t, so here are my hopes and ambitions.
- I am still on an insulin sensitizer, because I don’t expect my body to heal from my PCOS, I’ll be dragging that around my whole life, so might as well put a pretty bow on it and make it comfy. Ha ha! Meaning, I still have to take supplements and medications to manage it and I am fine with that and plan on doing just that.
- I plan to exercise daily with good workouts 4 days a week. I still love walking and try to get my steps in daily.
- I plan to eat lots of fiber, nutrient dense foods that fuel my body the way it deserves to be fueled. and watch my portions so things don’t get out of hand from that.
- I still plan on having treats on occasion and enjoying life fully (hello, I am a food blogger!).
- I plan on regulating stress and keeping inflammation down, getting good quality sleep and keeping my mental healthy in check as well.
- I plan on giving myself compassion if I gain a few pounds back but also keeping a close eye on things and getting help from my doctor if things get out of my control again, but sooner than I did in the past.
- If I have a bad experience with a doctor, I plan to advocate and speak up for myself and not be afraid to find a new one who understands my body and is willing to help without shaming me.
- I plan to live happily ever after, theoretically. Don’t we all. I’ll keep you posted on that one.
Before and After Wegovy (my experience with wegovy semaglutide continued)
In conclusion to my experience with wegovy semaglutide continued
Listen to your body, get help if you don’t have the answers, love your body and advocate for it. This journey has been worth it. I have tried to share an honest accounting of what I went through with the good, the bad and the ugly, I hope it was helpful to you and I wish you the very best of luck on your journey. Remember you are worth it, you are beautiful at any size and deserve to take up the space you do, NO matter your size. You deserve to be healthy and feel good in your own skin.
If you have questions, feel free to find me on Instagram @flypeachpie and message me, I’m an open book and would love to help if I can.