Married couple Susan and Michael Dixon share how their experiences taking Ozempic affected their health and changed their relationship with food.
When 51-year-old Susan Dixon was diagnosed with prediabetes, which means her blood sugar was above normal but not high enough to be considered type 2 diabetes, her doctor prescribed Ozempic off-label. .
“I have one [aortic aneurysm]so because of my heart condition and because I’m pre-diabetic, my doctor wanted me to lose weight,” Susan told Healthline.
Susan was already familiar with Ozempic because her 54-year-old husband, Michael, had started taking it about six months earlier to treat his type 2 diabetes and lower his A1C to less than 6. Within four months of taking the drug , his A1C lowered to 5. He also lost 15 lbs.
“Seeing Michael’s success absolutely made me want to give it a try,” Susan said.
Over the years, she has tried several weight loss programs, including Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, which have brought her some short-term success. In 2008, before her marriage to Michael, she also took prescription phentermine and as a result lost 40 pounds.
However, over the years, she struggled to maintain her weight no matter what method she used. She said Ozempic worked the best for weight management. After taking the drug for six weeks, she lost 14 pounds.
“[Ozempic] made me feel full and made my interest in food not really there. Michael said, ‘What are we eating?’ and I thought, ‘I don’t care. I would have cereal and a few bites of food, and that would be fine. Food didn’t interest me,” she said.
The active chemical compound semaglutide in Ozempic may cause weight loss by filling a person up, preventing them from emptying their stomach longer than usual and lowering blood sugar levels, said Dr. Rekha B. Kumarassociate professor of medicine at Cornell and chief medical officer at Find.
The reason Michael tried Ozempic was purely to manage type 2 diabetes and lower his blood sugar rather than to lose weight. In fact, he says, in the 15 years he lived with diabetes, he never tried to lose weight.
“I’m not a dieter, so I wasn’t the best patient and didn’t monitor carb and sugar intake,” he told Healthline. “I have never wanted or wanted to lose weight. I need to deepen that mindset because I know I should lose more weight.
By taking Ozempic, he feels full faster. This causes him to eat half of what he used to eat before taking the drug.
“I eat half a sandwich and go, ‘Oh, I’m full.’ That’s why I lost weight,” he said.
After being on Ozempic for a few years, he got used to responding to the full feeling.
“I’m able to put in the other half of the sandwich and try to stop eating when I realize I’m full,” Michael said.
Susan also learned to eat smaller portions thanks to Ozempic, and said it also affected her desire to drink alcohol.
“I wasn’t a big drinker and used to drink socially, but now if I drink a second glass of wine or drink it makes me feel sick, so I’ve cut back,” she said.
Since the Dixons are both on Ozempic, they said it helps them manage their weight together.
“Michael not wanting to eat makes me not want to eat. We try very hard not to snack between meals. If I say ‘it’s time for dessert or popcorn before bed’ and I notice he didn’t eat them, so I have nothing,” Susan said.
In 2022, the Food and drug administration reported shortages of Ozempic. This created controversial due to the fact that some people take the drug off-label to lose weight.
The shortage affected the Dixons in different ways.
The entire time Michael was on Ozempic, he was able to get the drug refilled. However, in the last three months, his insurance stopped allowing a 90-day supply, which means he no longer gets the discount (which was paying for two months supply and getting one month supply free). He can now only fill one month at a time.
“Michael didn’t have a problem because his dosage is lower than mine. At the time of the shortage, my dosage was 1mg and I couldn’t find that 1mg anywhere,” Susan said.
Due to the shortage, she was unable to fill Ozempic for two and a half months, and during that time she gained 10-12 pounds.
It’s common and expected, said Dr Sethu Reddy, president of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology. If people lose access to Ozempic like Susan did, or if their insurance coverage changes and they can’t afford it, it could slow their health progress.
“The effects of GLP-1 analogs are not permanent and if treatment is discontinued, their therapeutic effects wear off,” Reddy told Healthline. “Theoretically, these drugs will be taken for several years, but it is well known that people with type 2 diabetes eventually lose their ability to make insulin and will eventually need insulin therapy.”
Kumar added that a long-term commitment should be considered when starting any medication for a chronic condition, such as diabetes and obesity.
“If someone is taking Ozempic off-label or Wegovy on-label, those should also be sued for weight maintenance,” Kumar said. “Long-term use of weight management drugs is not unique to the GLP-1 class of drugs, but is true for all drugs used for weight management.”
By the time Susan was able to get Ozempic refilled in February 2023, her doctor increased her dosage of the medication. She has since lost 5 lbs.
“I don’t feel as good as I felt before I had to stop taking it. It still works but not as well as it started. My appetite isn’t as suppressed, but like before, food doesn’t excite me anymore,” Susan said.
Ozempic did, however, manage to lower his blood sugar. However, if her blood sugar continues to drop to the point where she is no longer pre-diabetic, her doctor told her that she would most likely prescribe Wegovy to continue losing weight.
“I would be happy to stop having to take Ozempic for blood sugar control, and I would take Wegovy to try to lose more weight,” Susan said.
Michael plans to stay with Ozempic for as long as his doctor prescribes it for diabetes management.
“I also take metformin for my diabetes so I will continue to take that and Ozempic as they both seem to be working,” he said.