"In case you've been living under a rock and missed the hype, Ozempic is an injectable diabetes drug that's become popular as an off-label medication for weight loss. It mimics GLP-1, a naturally occurring hormone, to suppress appetite and delay the passage of food in the stomach, making many feel fuller after eating less. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't take drugs like Ozempic because I have a stomach condition called gastroparesis, also known as paralysis of the stomach."
"In addition to nausea and vomiting, the condition also causes gas, acid reflux, distension and other equally fun symptoms. As my gastroenterologist explained it to me, the muscles in the stomach react too slowly in people with gastroparesis, causing food to sit there until it starts to ferment. The resulting symptoms, particularly the severe nausea and vomiting, mean that eating will be the last thing on your mind."
"My condition is officially listed as idiopathic - that is, it has no known cause. In the spring of 2015, I started to feel nauseous all the time. After months of morning sickness-like nausea and vomiting, followed by a misdiagnosis and an unnecessary surgery to remove my gallbladder, my gastroenterologist mentioned an unusual medical condition that could only be diagnosed with a special test at the hospital."
GLP-1 agonist drugs such as Ozempic are injectable diabetes medications increasingly used off-label for weight loss. They mimic a naturally occurring hormone to suppress appetite and delay gastric emptying, causing many people to feel full after smaller meals. Gastroparesis is paralysis of the stomach in which gastric muscles react too slowly, so food remains and can ferment, producing nausea, vomiting, gas, acid reflux, and distension. The condition affects about 10 men and 40 women per 100,000 people. Diagnosis requires a radioisotope gastric-emptying test that tracks a meal through the stomach with scans.
Read at BuzzFeed
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