I Felt Like I Was Dying on Ozempic

I feel like I almost died taking Ozempic; it was killing me slowly.

To people using Ozempic for weight loss: Do what you have to do. But it is a diabetes medicine. That's originally what it was used for.

I took Ozempic for Type 2 diabetes. Both my parents are diabetic and they recommended I talk to my doctor about using that over metformin. Metformin is known to have bad side effects for the first couple of weeks so we were trying to avoid that.

My doctor prescribed me Ozempic after we discussed my options. It helps to lower your blood sugar levels and honestly, it works amazing for that. My A1C hemoglobin went from 13 to 9 which was a huge jump in just a few months. I started off taking 0.25 then 0.5 then ultimately ending at 1.

The drug has side effects. Some of these can be mild, like nausea. Another one is weight loss because it's an appetite suppressant.

Later on, I found out that it can cause pain, pancreatitis, and a lot of other nasty side effects. I was okay for the first few dosages, but then I started to feel sick each time I took Ozempic. Things just got worse and worse.

I felt great for the first few months; my blood sugar was stable and I was losing weight easily.

But after about four months, I started slowly seeing symptoms. I would feel nauseous like I had food poisoning. The symptoms would last for days at a time always after I had taken a shot.

It got to the point where I would spend days throwing up and not able to hold anything in, feeling like I was dying from something that was supposed to help me live.

For days after taking Ozempic I would feel sick. At least once a week, an entire 24 to 48 hours would pass where I couldn't do anything. I was on the brink of going to the hospital. It was crazy and scary.

I asked my best friends what to do when I thought I was dying, but they didn't know how to help, and neither did I. I kept convincing myself that maybe I was allergic or ate something bad. Maybe it was "this", maybe it was "that".

Eventually, I had to admit to myself that, although it was helping me a lot with my diabetes, I was also suffering too much with the side effects of taking Ozempic—I had to find another medicine.

The side effects just aren't worth it for my body. So I took my last dose of Ozempic at the end of April, and I took it for eight months altogether.

My doctor wanted me to come in for tests. Overall, she wanted me to switch to something else to see if it was the Ozempic causing the side effects. We noticed when I stopped, that my blood sugar levels spiked again so I started taking metformin.

Sometimes, diabetes means picking the best of two evils. Metformin has its side effects but at least I don't feel like I'm dying anymore.

If you are having side effects with Ozempic and you think they'll just go away—no, they might not. It's time to speak to a doctor.

Chelcy Garrett is a TikTok influencer, founder of Konnect'd Entertainment, and passionate photographer capturing life's moments.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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