“We can’t hate ourselves into a version of ourselves we can love.” Lori Deschene
When I was young, I never really thought about my weight. I was blessed in that I was naturally skinny for many years and that is just how it was. I took it for granted that I would always be that way, but I was wrong. Many of you have read my previous posts talking about addiction and my struggle with mental health through the years. When I first realized that there was something wrong with my feelings and emotions I began a journey to mental health that would take years and years to figure out. The doctors first diagnosed me with depression in my 20’s and I began taking antidepressants. I have taken every antidepressant possible, starting with Prozac, Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft, Paxil, Latuda which are SSRI medications which raise the amount of serotonin in your brain which helps regulate moods. Some had terrible side effects and some seemed to do nothing at all. I also found it frustrating that they can take 6-8 weeks to work so it was months and months of taking and switching over and over again. We are talking months of time when nothing is getting better and you are so frustrated. When none of those worked I moved on to SNRI’s which raise levels of serotonin and norepinephrine like Cymbalta and Effexor. Those didn’t work either and at this point I was about a year into this and even more depressed that nothing seemed to be working. Next was what are called atypical antidepressants like Trazodone, Remeron and Wellbutrin but guess what, they didn’t work either.
As you can imagine I was getting pretty desperate for something, anything to work. Sleep was impossible and my emotions were all over the place. One day I was reading a magazine and I came across this ad for people with Bipolar 2 which I had never heard of at that time. I knew I did not have Bipolar 1 because I never had a manic episode, I never seemed to go up, just down and down. There was a 10-question survey to take to determine if you were Bipolar 2 or not and I was positive on every single question. It hit me like a freight train. I had been struggling for years trying to understand why nothing was helping. I could barely get out of bed most days and an ad in a magazine diagnosed me quicker than any doctor I had seen and for free! I was both furious and excited at the same time. Never in any of my many, many doctors appointments had they mentioned Bipolar 2 to me as a possibility. I called the doctor immediately for an appointment.
The reason none of the other drugs had helped was because they were for the wrong condition. So now I take a medicine called Seroquel XR. Seroquel is an antipsychotic which sounds way more scary than it should. These medications block certain dopamine and serotonin receptors and they also activate certain other dopamine and serotonin receptors. The reason this medication is different than a typical antidepressant is that it does both. After about three weeks on the meds I felt like I was waking up from a long nightmare. For the first time in years I felt like an actual human being with normal thoughts and a normal sleep schedule. It was exactly what I was searching for.
What a relief! Everything should be great now right? Well, except for the side effects. I slowly started gaining weight. Fast forward a year or two and I have gained a lot of weight. In fact, I am now obese, close to 250 lbs. For the first time in my life I was panicking about my weight. I tried everything, diet, exercise, I starved myself and nothing was working. When I finally faced up to the fact that it was the medication I began to look for alternatives. I attempted to take the alternatives which did not work for me, whether it was the side effects or how it made me feel nothing else seems to work. I decided to stop taking the medication which was a mistake. This is when I learned that my body and brain are addicted to Seroquel. I didn’t stop taking it all at once on the advice of my doctor. I slowly tapered off my large dose and immediately started having severe withdrawals.
Over the past 20 years I have attempted to stop taking Seroquel multiple times and each time has been a disaster. When I stop taking it, I get what they call drug-induced movement disorder. You know when you see a crackhead and they can’t stop jerking and moving around? You look like that. Doesn’t everyone want to look like that? It is awful. Not to mention that you cannot sleep at all for days on end. Look, the issue is the drug makes me feel normal but it also makes me gain weight like crazy. The doctors said my brain no longer produces the chemicals that the medicine controls and I will need to take it for the rest of my life. I am not thrilled about that but that is the way it is. I pretty much gave up on finding an alternative to the medicine. I keep an eye on the news for any new medications coming out but I am pretty resigned to the fact that nothing else is going to work.
Last year when I started hearing about Ozempic and Wegovy I didn’t think much about it because of the expense and I was not sure it would work for me. I was diagnosed with diabetes 2 last year mainly because of my weight. I tried taking the meds they prescribed but the side effects were awful. I started learning more about Ozempic and my doctor agreed to prescribe it for me, I just needed to figure out how to convince my health insurance to pay for it. What I learned is that in order to get your insurance to cover it you need to show that you have taken other, cheaper drugs for diabetes and either they gave you side effects or did not work at all. I researched how to get an insurance company to cover it and followed the directions to get a preauthorization approved. By some miracle, my insurance company agreed to cover it! Honestly, I was shocked.
I started taking Ozempic in January and I was very excited. I didn’t know if it would work or not. Ozempic works by mimicking a naturally occurring hormone. As those hormone levels rise, the molecules go to your brain, telling it your full. It also slows digestion by increasing the time it takes for food to leave the body. When I first started taking the smallest dose of .25mg a week I had no side effects. As I slowly increased the dosage I had some nausea (which eventually went away entirely) but no other side effects. I think the main effect of the drug is you no longer want to eat, like at all. I went from thinking about food all the time to never thinking about it, I have about 4 or 5 bites and I am full. This has been quite a revelation for me! I did not realize that I thought about food as much as I did. I am taking a 1mg dose a week now and I have lost 55 lbs in 3 months!
For years people have insisted that I am eating badly and not exercising enough and that is why I am overweight. I have been told to have more self-control, told that I am less of a person because of my weight and that it is all my fault. I have been shamed over and over again because I am obese. Trust me, no one has abused me like I have abused myself for my inability to control my weight. The constant inner dialogue is more toxic than anything that someone else can say to me. For years I have known that the medication I was taking was causing the weight gain yet I hated myself for my inability to control it even though it was UNCONTROLLABLE. How ridiculous is that? It makes no sense at all but that is my inner dialogue and I am willing to bet that most other women do the same things to themselves.
As the weight comes off I can feel the changes in my body. My knees are not hurting for the first time in many years, all of my clothes are loose and I feel like I have more energy. Recently a friend of mine said that these drugs are cheating and not fair for those who cannot afford them. I could not disagree more! We have a major issue in this country with the price of drugs. I take an biologic injection for my psoriatic arthritis that costs $5000 a month. Yes, you read that correctly, $5000 a month which is $60,000 a year. Insurance will not cover it (of course) so I have to get it directly from the manufacturer for free which involves a lot of paperwork and time, it is not just the weight loss drugs it is almost all of them. The pharmaceutical and health insurance companies are screwing us. As for the cheating allegations, give me a break. Losing weight gets rid of numerous health conditions that come with it and as a whole will make us healthier thus reducing medical costs and the medications that we need. It is a win-win situation for everyone including the insurance companies.
So I am pretty excited to see how the next few months go. How much weight will I lose? I have been riding my bike to help get rid of the weight and because I would like to take my dogs on long hikes without feeling like I might pass out and die. I am below 200 pounds for the first time in years and I am loving it! The Seroquel keeps my mental health on the positive side and I am thrilled that I will also be able to physically move around without carrying the pounds and pounds of weight it causes. Honestly, I feel like a brand-new person! Please, if you have any questions about the drugs and how they make you feel reach out to me, I would be happy to tell you all I know.
The night is calling... 