meara, do you mind if I ask you about the drug you're on?

Dana, it’s an experimental drug—I’m on a trial so could either be on placebo (lol totally not), semaglutide, a new drug called cagrilinitide, or a combo of those two (most likely what I’m on!) called CagriSema. Cagrilinitide works on a different thing than Semaglutide does.

For me it’s been amazing—I did have some pretty bad nausea when I first tried to increase the dose, but since then it’s rarely been an issue and more an issue of “trying to eat ENOUGH”. And some constipation (because it slows down your whole digestive system). I’ve not eaten as much protein as I should’ve, so know I’ve lost more muscle than ideal. But it’s been super easy, for the first time ever in my life. At this point they lowered my dose because I’ve lost all the weight I need or want to, and they don’t want me to lose more.

I’m a little worried that when the trial is over (July) I will promptly gain back all the weight but crossing my fingers that I can either get on a follow up study or manage to pay for a maintenance dose of Ozempic or similar.

If anyone is interested in a trial I highly recommend searching clinicaltrials.gov for obesity or weight loss indications and seeing if anything is enrolling! My sister found an academic study that has had her on Semaglutide, and my brother found a cagrisema vs Semaglutide study that he just started on (so no placebo!).

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So for instance if any of you meet the criteria and there’s a location listed near you, you can contact the number to get connected (or if it specifies the name of the place near you, you can call them directly)

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Interesting, meara. Thanks.

I would love to get on one of those or something already approved BECAUSE of the slow down your digestive system effect - losing thirty would be great, but reducing my trips to the loo on some days would be HEAVEN. I'd pay cash money for anything that slowed my gut's roll. Why have I dragged my feet seeing the doctor I need to see about this? Jesus, Jennifer.

Yesterday was the gathering for my friend, Patrick. I had a pleasant time and chatted with some lovely people who knew him from different places than I did so we had never met before. It was completely unstructured, no one even said any, like, "final remarks", which would have had me feeling like I was lacking closure. But they had a display they put together to give to his folks, which included 5 or 6 photos that I contributed and a place to write messages. So I decided that getting to say one last goodbye was perfectly nice closure. Turns out it was pancreatic cancer. So, as usual, cancer can fuck right off.

I feel as though I've sincerely gotten mansplained, because somebody has finally hit on some of my expertise. To wit: "You've heard of sarcasm, right?"(Although when it comes to abled people understanding ableism...well, let's just say, at times, it does not hurt to start slowly.) I could have posted "No! Enlighten me." and ended up in a total chatbot-ish loop.

Stay strong, Erika. Probably not worth the agita to engage with that type.

Don't really care enough.

Happy valentine's, Bitches! (Probably the twentieth, if you're scoring at home. Or even if you're alone...)