The Great Ozempic Saga Continues:
Healthcare, Fatness, and Other Dramas.
By Erin Riley
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If you don’t want to read about my diabetes and bariatric journeys, scroll on by, superfly.
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At the beginning of 2023, my primary care doctor was really very pleased with my blood work. Total cholesterol at 122, B12 and D are normal for the first time in like, a decade. Iron is up. And my A1C was sitting at 7.2. Which isn’t greaaaaat, per say, but below 7 is the goal, so there’s progress. Ever the perfectionists, Dr. Joe and I decided we were going to put me on Ozempic to try and lower that Hemoglobin and make it my bitch. He prescribed it. I started taking it once a week. BOOM. Daily fasting sugar came down about 15 points and I dropped 20 pounds in a month (WHICH WAS NOT THE GOAL. I REPEAT. NOT. THE. GOAL. I won’t say it wasn’t a bonus, but it was not the prescribed plan.)
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I finish my first injector pen, I go for my follow up, we do some in- office blood work and things look freaking great. I haven’t had so much energy in months. We decide to keep me on the half dose because it’s doing the damned thing. Wonderful right?
Yeah… not so much.
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After 2 1/2 weeks of fighting with CVS, fighting with Medicaid, EIGHT phone calls equaling 4 1/2 hours of my life, my doctor finally gets the damned drug RE-approved and the pharmacy processes it.
ONLY FOR IT TO BE OUT OF STOCK!
And why? Why is it out of stock? Because the Kardashians have named it “the new Hollywood Weight Loss Drug.”
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But.
Before you think I’m about to bash people for trying to lose weight with medical intervention. Let’s Pause.
Cause I’m not.
Who I AM going to bash, however, is the inherently fatphobic, entirely greedy, and wholly over/under-regulated American Healthcare System and its evil twin Big Pharma.
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Let me start with a disclaimer. IT IS OKAY TO BE A FAT PERSON. You are valuable. You are beautiful. You are loved. And you can certainly be healthy regardless of size. I have been a fat person for 40 years. I’ve hated myself for it. And I’ve done more than my fair share of penance to the medical fields who have taken care of me over the years. I’ve also learned to love myself as I am physically, however, my fatness is now a clinical issue affecting the quality of my life. So, don’t come at me. You don’t want to meet my Sagittarius rising…
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The American public has been force-fed diet culture since the beginning of time and in main-stream media since as early as the 1940s. Specifically targeting women (although men aren’t immune, that’s for sure…) with slogans like “A Moment on the Lips, Forever on the Hips” and “Nothing Tastes as Good as Thin Feels” have been causing disordered eating and chronic depression and anxiety for literal generations. And why? The propagandists would have you believe it’s out of concern for human health, concern for the drain fat people are on the health care system, etc. But let’s grow up here for a second a face facts. It’s about MONEY. $$$ Did you know that the Global Weight Loss Industry made 470 BILLION dollars in 2021? Here’s the resource on that: https://www.businesswire.com/…/Global-Weight-Management…
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The facts are pretty simple.
Fatness is blamed for the American Health Crisis
Fatness is stereotyped as lazy, disgusting, ugly, and unintelligent
Fat is equated with evil in mainstream media
BUT
Obesity (I hate that word) is classified as a chronic disease
Fatness doesn’t always have to do with lifestyle, it is often genetic
Calorie deficit and exercise rarely work for people who are genetically coded towards fatness.
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Health Insurance considers Bariatric Medicine, in many cases, COSMETIC
Health Insurance refuses to cover drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc., because fat people should just be able to starve their bodies into submission
2 out of every 3 fat folks surveyed stated “their doctors don’t listen to their problems and immediately point to their fatness as the issue.”
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We have become so programmed to hate fatness and fat people, that life-improving and, in some cases, live-saving measures are being denied on the basis that fat folks should “just try harder” or just “do better.” Speaking a person who started her first round of pediatrician-prescribed Weight Watchers at 7, I’M NOT SURE HOW MUCH HARDER I’M SUPPOSED TO TRY.
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So, I wait. I wait for the fucking Ozempic to become available. And I WELL-WISH the HELL out of the people who are using it for WHATEVER they need it for. Diabetes. Weight Loss. Whatever. I just want us all to have a damned shot. And that isn’t too much to ask. It’s just kindness. It’s just taking care of humans. It’s putting actual health and healthy practices over discrimination, greed, and hatred.
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Also. How about we make more of the damned stuff. And regulate it so it doesn’t cost $12938471239 for people who don’t have health insurance.
It’s NOT that hard.
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P.S. Hold your fat friends, trans friends, queer friends, BIPOC friends, and drag friends close. It’s exhausting when they keep coming for us.
Life of Riley 