Should you take Ozempic?
This blog post is from the Nurse Kim archives of myth busting. I want to share some "alternative" or maybe just lesser known health and wellness viewpoints for you to chew on.
*These posts are not intended as official medical advice.
They ARE meant to be fun, informative, and thought provoking, hopefully sparking an interest for you to do your own research (you can start with the links I provide!) and discover the marvels of the human body, and how it can function at its optimal performance level if we understand how it works and interacts with our environment and our diet.
I have a passion for health and wellness through lifestyle and nutrition and have done thousands of hours of research in addition to being a registered nurse for 23 years. I have done A LOT of self-experimentation in and around diet, lifestyle, body care, and supplementation and have spent a lot of time looking into the science behind it all (or lack thereof!). Check back weekly for the latest post!
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I once had someone tell me, if you are considering taking a risk and you can’t live with the worst-case scenario outcome, don’t take the risk.
It’s a
simple yet powerful decision-making tool that can simplify what might otherwise
seem like an impossible decision.
In the modern chronic disease epidemic that is plaguing our
country, we are saturated in pharmaceutical advertisements (one of only 2
countries that allow this) and worse, doctors are ONLY trained to prescribe
medication and do procedures, rather than looking at and attempting to treat
the root cause of a health issue.
These realities are not anyone’s “fault” per say, just
smaller parts of a larger broken healthcare system badly in need of reform. But
what does this mean for the consumer trying to make the best decisions for
their own health and wellness?
My advice? Make yourself “undoctored.” A favorite guru of
mine Dr. William Davis wrote a book entitled Undoctored (I recommend you check it
out!) to teach us how to remedy our own health problems and therefore effectively
eliminate our reliance on the broken healthcare system as much as possible. This
sounds super scary at first as we are used to being dependent on medical "experts" to tell us what to do for just about every ailment, but the good news is, we
now have knowledge at our fingertips through the world wide web.
“I read it on the internet so it must be true.”
So yeah,
there’s that old saying poking fun at interested individuals trying to make
their own discoveries but I want to challenge that statement. While not
everything on the internet is true, it is still a treasure trove of information
for those who wish to put in the effort to learn. I know life is busy, but when
we are talking about health and longevity, I would argue it is entirely worth
making the time to learn about your body, how it functions best, and the ways
we are hurting our bodies by following some of the modern mainstream healthcare
and dietary practices that are faulty.
Taking a pill (or injection) to mask a symptom, or the latest craze, to lose weight, comes with risks and consequences.
The most
recent observations of those taking the popular weight loss GLP-1 inhibitor
drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc.) is a complication called gastroparesis…
when the stomach can no longer empty food properly. Since GLP-1 inhibitor drugs
are actually designed to slow gastric emptying, it would only make sense
that this complication would be listed as a possible side effect, but guess
what? It isn’t. This has resulted in numerous individuals unknowingly taking
these meds as a quick fix, and now living with this lifelong disease process as
a result. The companies who make these meds are STILL resistant to naming gastroparesis
an official side effect of these medications. Why is that? Because many people
when faced with a serious chronic illness as a possible outcome may reconsider
whether the risk is worth it, and many would decide it isn’t... back to my original
statement at the beginning of the post.
In this case, these individuals did not even have the opportunity to consider the “worst case scenario” of taking these drugs because the manufacturers, and therefore their doctors, simply failed to advise them that this was a possible outcome. Now you see why I have a problem with pharmaceutical advertisements and the pharmaceutical industry in general. They are a profit driven business and they have made billions from these medications. So, what’s a little payout here and there to those who were harmed?
And that is how they operate in our broken system.
Should you take one of these medications if recommended by your doctor? Maybe. I know a few people who have had great outcomes. But at least now you have a little more information about some downsides. I also recommend you read the book I linked above before jumping on any medication.
Maybe, just maybe, there is another way... and a way to avoid having to make these impossible decisions completely.
Until next time ya’ll.
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