Hire more people! Every store I have been to in the last few weeks has tons of stock in boxes, nothing on the shelf, and two people working in the store. Yeh, I took some stock out of the boxes myself today and make some of the store look good. Your welcome!
So I started Zepbound at 1.25mg. I felt something but it was mild. Then I upped the dose to 1.75mg on the second week. I have to say... I really can't tell anything is working at all. No nausea. Almost no side effects and I really don't feel that food suppressed. If the drug is helping me it is super mild.
So next week I am considering going up to the 2.5 mg dose. Thoughts?
Is there some "ah ha" symptom that lets you know the drug is definitely working?
As to the oft cited food noise. I can't really tell a difference. Sure I am not running down to the store to get an ice cream but is that because I am afraid that if I did I would end up throwing up?
This board has often questioned how to interpret blood pressure that isn't high all the time. I saw this while tooling around you tube. I have like 117/74 blood pressure at night and 128/83 during the day. Just thought it was interesting.
>he blood pressure reading you get at the doctor is a single snapshot taken in the middle of the day, and for a lot of people that snapshot hides the number that actually matters.
In a healthy body, blood pressure is not steady around the clock. It rises during the day when you are active and falls at night while you sleep, usually by ten to twenty percent. That nightly dip is not incidental. It is the window when the heart and arteries get to operate at lower pressure and recover from the day. The problem is that some people never get the dip, and a daytime cuff reading cannot tell those two people apart.
In the people who keep that night fall, the system gets its break. In the people who lose it, blood pressure stays elevated twenty-four hours a day, and that around-the-clock load is what does the damage. The unsettling part is how invisible it is. Two people can walk into the same clinic, register the same 128 over 82, and walk out with the same clean bill, while one of them has pressure that quietly stays high all night, every night. The label for that pattern is non-dipping, and the only way to see it is to measure pressure across a full day and night rather than at one moment.
According to the Dublin Outcome Study, which followed 5,292 adults and was published by Dolan and colleagues in Hypertension in 2005, found that pressure measured across a full twenty-four hours predicted cardiovascular death better than the clinic reading did, and the nighttime numbers carried the strongest signal. The pattern that the standard checkup is structurally unable to capture turned out to be the one most worth knowing.
The reason this is worth posting, rather than just alarming, is that it is both findable and often fixable, and one of the levers costs nothing. The first step is to actually see your own pattern, which means asking for a twenty-four hour ambulatory monitor or checking your pressure at home in the evening and again first thing in the morning. The second step, if the pressure is not dropping, is a conversation about timing. Takeda and colleagues showed in 2009 that moving a long-acting blood pressure medication to bedtime can restore the normal nighttime fall, which is to say the fix can sometimes be nothing more than changing when you take a pill you are already taking. That is worth raising with a doctor rather than acting on alone, because a large 2022 UK trial called TIME, published by Mackenzie and colleagues in The Lancet, found that for overall cardiovascular outcomes it did not ultimately matter whether people took their pills in the morning or the evening. The honest read is that bedtime dosing reliably shifts the nighttime number but is not a guaranteed change in long-term outcome, so it is a personalized decision, not a blanket rule.
The third lever is the one most people never connect to their blood pressure: sleep. Obstructive sleep apnea is one of the leading hidden causes of pressure that refuses to fall at night, documented by Marcus and colleagues in 2014, and treating it can restore the dip that the apnea was erasing. A pressure that stays high overnight is sometimes a breathing problem wearing a cardiovascular disguise.
The number on the chart at your physical is real, but it is one frame of a twenty-four hour film, and the part it routinely misses is the part that predicts the most. If high blood pressure runs in your family, or yours sits at the upper edge of normal, the question worth asking is not just what it reads at noon, but whether it ever comes down at night.
Dolan et al., Hypertension 2005
Takeda et al., Hypertens Res 2009
Mackenzie et al., Lancet 2022
Marcus et al., 201
So last week was my first week and I dosed 1.25 mg of Zepbound. Though I definitely felt effects from the drug (especially in the first three days) I had no side effects and was not nauseous. Though I had fatigue
So on my second shot I went up to 1.75 mg of Zepbound and injected it in my stomach (last time was thigh).
Dangerous because I am going into work tomorrow. But I feel the most urge to over eat when I go into work so I wanted to have the drug in me. I hope I don't pay the price.
I have been having these zits (feels like that) on my scalp and my scalp is itchy. Is this a menopause symptom? I thought it was just that I was slacking on my hair care but I have been washing every other day with various shampoos and nothing has been changing. I even stopped washing with hot water (in case it was drying it out) - nothing is changing.
I just started Zepbound on Thursday. With my doctor's permission I am taking 1.25mg. So far, no side effects but I did feel a change in my head. Basically it feels (1) like i am not particularly hungry and (2) like if I have a thought of food... it falls out of my head. Whereas before, the food thought would take hold of me and force me to eat.
It could be a placebo effect, though I don't think it is because my food has come down, much more than usual, but I figure ... either way it is working.
The issue for me is that "diet culture" I think has cropped up around this drug. I don't want to go on that roller coaster again. For example, the internet tells me you must have gross protein shakes, you must spend your Saturday running around trying to find said gross protein shakes even though they are all sold out everywhere... you must drink 90 glasses of water (exaggerating) and supplement with gross electrolytes. You must go to the gym and work out. Who died and made these rules? Are they really necessary?
One of the reasons I need a diet drug in the first place is because I have too full of a life to do all this stuff "CICO / dieting" wants. I am out of the house from 7 to 7 and too tired to do any workout when I get home. (not to mention the gym is full). Drinking so much water sends me to the bathroom every hour. You haven't known misery until you are stuck on a late train and you have had to go for an hour and there is no train movement in sight. These things are not compatible with living any sort of work life.
Also I am just getting that old fashioned feeling about the mean girls. There are so many people who want the world to be a certain way and will not hear anything else and will not tolerate anything else. I.e you only can take a certain dose, you must stay on the drug for the rest of your life.
Finally I am tried of these random posts from people talking about how they had one injection and had draconian side effects. They are freaking me out... and I am starting to doubt some of them. Like they post once and never follow up.
I have decided to stop reading about the drug and stop watching videos about the drug. I would prefer to make mistakes on my own and have "peace".
Today was day one of Zepbound for me. So far no real side effects that really bothered me. I have felt a little tired all day and I might have had some gas and burping. But mild.
I do think it is working though. Perhaps it is placebo.
Basically I can't say I didn't have a thought of food all day today.... but every time a thought popped into my head like.. "the ice cream shop is open now..." normally that thought would capture me until I got the ice cream.
But today, it was like that thought fell out of my head. Like I knew there was an ice cream shop but my head said: Meh.
Then for dinner I had rice and a veggie burger. The rice container was tiny and I thought it was a complete serving but after checking it... I realized the entire small container was 2 servings and 400 cals. So I decided to have three teaspoons. I mean... it is insane that I would ever be satisifed with that before. I put the rest in the fridge. And every time I think about it I think: Meh. Normally that left over would be singing to me until I ate it.
Finally I ordered groceries for pick up at the grocery store. Typically I don't order for pick up because I would feel the urge to go to the store so I could get the food and eat it immediately and pick up is like a 2 hour wait. But this time - though I keep reminding myself that I have to go at the appointed time - it feels like I am picking up my clothing at the dry cleaner. I don't feel that impatience.
I went to the doctor yesterday and she gave me a prescription for zepbound. I wasn't aware it would come in a vial and you could play around with the dose.
I told the doctor I had held off for months for fear of side effects. I told her I cannot have side effects because I must be at my job with very little notice. IMHO she was very dismissive and told me I wouldn't have side effects at 2.5 mg and I must take that to begin. I thought she was far too dismissive. I think I need a new doctor - I don't trust her.
But now I realize I can basically take what I choose. Should I micro dose on my own?
How do I prepare? I am terrified of side effects. What foods should I buy?
I am having the nurse show me how to inject it the first time.
I am on vacation for the next two weeks. I really want to get it in me while I am on vacation.
I have a non wood front door that is painted black. It has sun damage from sun and a glass storm door that makes it insanely hot when it gets direct sun. So I cleaned it yesterday (when it was cloudy) and decided to use some coconut oil to see if I could brighten the color and also clean it. It did, but now I am wondering if that was a good idea when the sun comes back.
Also when you put your hand on the door it is all oily.
Any ideas how to get it off. I have scrubbed with dawn and it sill is there.
So in 2022-2024 I felt my blood pressure was getting up there. I kept having headaches when something stressful would happen at work. So in late 2024 I got on medication and also had an Echocardiogram which showed "mild" LVH. At the same time an EKG had suggested that as well and was listed as "abnormal".
I found it hard to believe that my blood pressure which appeared to be about 133/85 was enough to cause LVH but I got on the medication and have been on it for two years. My BP is not much lower now but is about 3 to 7 points lower.
Just got another EKG. Normal.
Conclusion (1) my blood pressure may have been dramatically higher when I was at work and I just didn't know it.... and (2) the medication worked.
So back in December some high ALT numbers lead to an ultrasound which noted diffusely increased echogenicity. My doctor assumed it was fatty liver. So I asked for a fibroscan. I just got it... and according to the fibroscan my liver is normal.
Metavir score F0 (< 5.48 kPa). Normal liver.
Great news right? NO. Apparently my liver is still showing diffusely increased echogenicity.
The report says this may be due to edema, right sided heart failure and a lot of other scary things. But everything they listed imho... isn't applicable.