What happens if you stop taking Wegovy? Millions are finding out

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Millions of people that have dropped weight utilizing weight problems medicine like Wegovy are going through a brand new dilemma: What happens if they stop taking them?

Many fear, rightly, that they’ll regain weight and revert to previous habits if they stop taking the drug. Doctors have issued a warning to not deal with them like ‘an injection shop’.

But others are playing on a do-it-yourself technique to ease off the medicine and keep slim by stretching out doses, taking the treatment intermittently or stopping and beginning once more solely if wanted.

In medical trials, sufferers who paused the medicine put again on many of the weight they misplaced.

“To me, it’s a help, it’s an aid,” stated Donna Cooper, 62, of Front Royal, Virginia, who misplaced practically 40 kilos in 9 months utilizing Wegovy together with food plan and train. “At some point you have to come off of them. I don’t want to be on them forever.”

More than 3 million prescriptions for the brand new medicines are allotted every month within the US, in line with current information from the well being know-how firm IQVIA. They embrace semaglutide, the drug in Ozempic and Wegovy, and tirzepatide, the drug in Mounjaro and Zepbound.

But many individuals do not keep it up. One current research printed within the journal Obesity discovered that simply 40% of sufferers who stuffed a prescription for Wegovy in 2021 or 2022 had been nonetheless taking it a yr later.

Doctors who deal with weight problems stress that the illness is a persistent situation that have to be managed indefinitely, like coronary heart illness or hypertension. The new injection medicine work by mimicking hormones within the intestine and the mind to manage urge for food and emotions of fullness. They had been designed — and examined — to be taken constantly, specialists stated.

“We are not an injection shop,” stated Dr. Andres Acosta, an weight problems researcher and medical adviser on the Mayo Clinic. “I don’t think they should be used in intermittent fashion. It’s not approved for that. They don’t work like that.”

Despite that directive, some sufferers who achieved their well being and weight targets with the medicine are searching for an off-ramp, stated Dr. Amy Rothberg, a University of Michigan endocrinologist who directs a weight-management and diabetes remedy program.

“Many of them want to step down or de-escalate their dose,” she stated. “And they’re also wanting to ultimately discontinue the medication.”

The causes for pausing the medicine can differ, stated Dr. Katherine Saunders, an weight problems professional at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-founder of the weight problems remedy firm Intellihealth. Some sufferers don’t like unintended effects equivalent to nausea and constipation. Others wish to stop for holidays or particular events — or simply as a result of they don’t wish to take the weekly photographs indefinitely.

One of Saunders’ sufferers, a 53-year-old New York man, misplaced 70 kilos final yr utilizing Mounjaro. He informed Saunders he wished to take “a breather” from the treatment to see how his physique reacted. On her recommendation, he has been stretching out injections to each 10 days or two weeks, as an alternative of weekly, since December.

Other sufferers have been compelled to ration or halt doses as a result of the medicine are expensive — $1,000 to $1,300 per thirty days — and insurance coverage protection varies or as a result of demand has far outstripped provide, Rothberg famous.

“It’s being imposed on them,” she stated. “By necessity they have to go off the medication and kind of figure it out.”

But hoping the medicine’ advantages will final even after stopping them ignores the elemental biology of weight problems, specialists stated. The illness impacts the best way the physique processes and shops vitality, inflicting it to build up weight. The new medicine alter that course of and when sufferers stop, the illness returns, usually with a vengeance.

Many folks dropping off the medicines report a pointy rise in signs of weight problems. They embrace so-called meals noise or intrusive ideas of meals; raging starvation; and decreased emotions of fullness after they eat.

“These drugs are just a super-suppressor of these native signals,” Rothberg stated. “And we should expect that’s going to occur.”

Tara Rothenhoefer, 48, of Trinity, Florida, misplaced greater than 200 kilos after becoming a member of a medical trial for Mounjaro practically 4 years in the past. She now takes the bottom dose of the drug each 4 to eight weeks, however she worries when her weight fluctuates by a couple of kilos.

“It scares the daylights out of me to see the numbers on the scale going up,” she stated.

Some sufferers who stop the medicine and begin once more discover they’ll’t tolerate the treatment, winding up with extreme gastrointestinal unintended effects, Acosta stated. Others discover the medicine don’t work as nicely after they restart them, Saunders added. But there isn’t any information on the long-term results of intermittent use.

“I don’t think it’s a strategy that will work for most individuals, but it could be an option for select patients,” Saunders stated.

Donna Cooper has heard that folks acquire again weight after they stop the medicine, however she hopes to be an exception. She’s on her final field of Wegovy injections. Once she’s completed, Cooper stated she’ll simply proceed with a strict food plan and train plan.

“I just needed a crutch to get everything back in order,” stated Cooper, who has gone from a measurement 16 to a measurement 10. “And I am excited to be done.”