Texas Mother Shares Ride Using Ozempic for 1 one year: ‘It be More Refined Than Folk Realize’

Natasha Robinson has prolonged struggled with high glucose, insulin and A1C levels, which made her make weight and develop into extraordinarily fatigued. For loads of years, the 37-one year-outmoded from Dallas was as soon as taking diabetes drug metformin but noticed no progress. In disclose someone who works in better training and has in-felony guidelines who’re pharmacists, Robinson took matters into her contain hands and did learn for better choices.

She within the wreck chanced on Ozempic and suggested it to her doctor.

Ozempic is an FDA-authorized prescription treatment — taken by injection within the thigh, stomach or arm — incessantly celebrated to abet lower blood sugar in other folks with Variety 2 diabetes. It be the emblem title for semaglutide, which stimulates insulin production and additionally targets areas of the mind that preserve an eye fixed on appetite, consistent with the FDA.

With approval from her doctor, Robinson started taking Ozempic in January 2022 and is now opening up to PEOPLE concerning the fact of taking the drug for the previous one year.

“I was as soon as honest a little anxious, to be merely, because I create no longer cherish needles. So the theory of truly giving myself an injection was as soon as rather upsetting,” she tells PEOPLE. “Nonetheless I started the treatment to investigate cross-check to accumulate my body to full what it was as soon as presupposed to be doing — wisely disclose the insulin that my body was as soon as constructing.”

Natasha Robinson

Taking the treatment was as soon as rather the adjustment for Robinson. Early on, she handled heaps of nausea — an on a fashioned basis side operate of Ozempic. On the opposite hand, the side effects lessened because the months passed by.

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“The nausea was as soon as rather rough originally,” she explains. “I repeatedly take my injection at night, and by about midday the subsequent day, I’d initiate to feel truly tired and nauseated. That could well well final for maybe two days and then I’d feel critically better and in point of fact accumulate honest a little bit extra energy than I had sooner than.”

“Now, I could contain honest a little bouts of nausea, but it be no doubt nothing prefer it was as soon as for that first month the keep I’d feel continuously nauseous for a gaggle of days,” she adds.

Robinson additionally noticed that, even even supposing the volume on the dimension wasn’t her enlighten, she started shedding pounds after a pair of month on the treatment.

“I spotted appropriate away that my cheekbones had been exhibiting honest a little bit extra,” she explains. “One morning I in actuality awoke and told my husband, ‘Produce I contain bruises?’ Because I had this little home that my cheeks had been exhibiting and it regarded like little bruises. That was as soon as truly my first indication that one thing was as soon as altering.”

Robinson’s swap in her face could be the quit result of but another regular side operate, dubbed “Ozempic face,” the keep the weight loss deflates key areas of the face and volume is lost.

Natasha Robinson

By October, the mother of two dropped 52 lbs. and her health had improved critically within the areas her doctor hoped.

“My blood work truly reveals a necessary shift in markers for inflammation and my insulin and glucose,” she says, noting that she has so a lot extra energy. “I contain so critically better than I did and I appropriate didn’t realize how no longer easy lifestyles was as soon as changing into sooner than.”

No topic the progress along with her health, there is one lingering element that worries Robinson: the charge of Ozempic.

Robinson is for the time being spending $24.99 per month on Ozempic, which she says she has no enlighten with. On the opposite hand, without her month-to-month coupon, her prescription would charge $175 per month, and without her insurance protection protection, she would be spending over $1,000 per month.

There are for the time being no generic kinds of Ozempic and the real looking retail charge without insurance protection can differ from $1,205 to $1,368.

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Man making ready semaglutide Ozempic injection.
Getty

Robinson says she’s “terrified” of the chance of no longer being ready to accumulate her treatment anymore as her insurance protection firm will soon require a prior authorization for Ozempic — a enlighten many others are additionally going thru.

“It be a lifelong treatment. Your body would no longer appropriate without warning endure in tips how one can disclose insulin wisely or how one can develop into extra insulin soft. So I was as soon as entirely searching at for to be at a lower dose for my total lifestyles,” she says, noting that she’s already thinking of ways to accumulate her treatment if one thing happens.

“I’d seemingly disclose it from Canada if my doctor had been provocative to write down a prescription for me,” she admits. “Because $250 or $300 is so a lot extra cheap than $2,000, or whatever high quantity it’s without the protection.”

Robinson explains that even even supposing there are other folks which contain taken Ozempic as a result of a internet fad, she and heaps others depend heavily on the treatment.

“I mediate the extra that we focus on weight problems, diabetes, insulin resistance, and PCOS, the extra other folks learn that it be no longer repeatedly that you just are being lazy,” she says. “There could be this false affect that you just are being lazy will contain to it’s seemingly you’ll well also contain health considerations and also you cannot fall some weight. Nonetheless occasionally it be so a lot extra complex than other folks realize.”

Robinson, who has additionally been sharing her ride on social media, tells PEOPLE it be well-known that her followers learn the alternate choices accessible for their clinical wants and feel pleased constructing a knowing with their doctors that can easiest beef up their health.

She adds that despite some misinformation that can come from the contemporary traits interesting Ozempic, she’s jubilant these conversations are being held because they’ll abet diversified other folks like herself. Ozempic — and diversified identical injections like Wegovy and Mounjaro — has recently been trending on social media and in Hollywood circles as some other folks contain celebrated it for weight loss, even when no longer medically well-known.

“Celebrities don’t appear to be truly serving to issues as soon as they order on medicines that they took for a instant length of time or by accident took — the misinformation is not very any longer big — but the fact that we’re ready to contain extra conversations about these medicines, I create no longer mediate that is a rotten element,” Robinson says.