GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT…TYPE 2 DIABETES #32: Taking Ozempic…after LOTS OF RESISTANCE…

For the first time since I started this blog eleven years ago, it’s going to be about me. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes two weeks ago. While people are happy to talk about their experiences with diabetes, I WASN’T comfortable with talking about diabetes. My wife is Type 2, as are several friends of ours. The “other Type” of diabetes was what caused the death of my Best Man a year after my wife and I got married. He was diagnosed with diabetes when he was a kid. It was called Juvenile Diabetes then. Today it’s Type 1. Since then, I haven’t WANTED to talk about diabetes at all. But…for my own education and maybe helping someone else, and not one to shut up for any known reason, I’m reopening my blog rather than starting a new one. I MAY take a pause and write about Breast Cancer or Alzheimer’s as medical headlines dictate; but this time I’m going to drag anyone along who wants to join my HIGHLY RELUCTANT journey toward better understanding of my life with Type 2 Diabetes. You’re Welcome to join me!

You’re SO lucky you’re not my wife…

I’ve ranted against Ozempic pretty much ever since it first appeared. First, I thought it was a lazy way to deal with the necessary measures a person had to take to change their lives and get healthier and deal with the new information about the deadly results of just letting it run its course.

Don’t get me wrong, I WANTED to take the easy way out! But, I also wanted to maintain my sense of self. A modicum of CONTROL over what I could and couldn’t DO with my own body.

Secondly, I railed against how the pharmaceutical world had encouraged, advertised for, and pushed Ozempic (and similar drugs) as a quick, easy, painless, and SIMPLE way for a fat person to eat whatever they want to eat and then just take a shot and watch the ugly fat melt away…no more diets! No more self control (LOATHSOME WORDS to the rich, beautiful, and self-indulgent!)

So, there you have it.

And here you find me. My doctor recommended I take Ozempic – though I fought him to find a pill version. I first discovered that the actual tablet is one of the most bitter things I have ever attempted to ingest. I had to play around with placing it on the correct part of my tongue in order not to taste the horrific thing!

Right after that, and after three or four bottles, I discovered that the COST was absurd: I was being charged over $900 for a three month supply for Rybelsus after my first bottle that my insurance covered…I fought it for almost another year, then my doctor said I NEEDED it to lose enough weight not to drop dead of one of the things that can kill a Type 1 diabetic:

MAJOR COMPLICATIONS OF TYPE 2 DIABETES (as opposed to just being fat, flabby, unfit, and unwilling to do ANYTHING that someone else tells you to do. Why break a sweat when you’re rich enough to buy skinniness with a shot?) WHICH CAN LEAD TO DEATH!

Higher risk of Cardiovascular Disease: heart attack, stroke, and heart failure and its complications. High blood pressure and cholesterol: increase the risk of cardiovascular disease; higher risk of stroke leading to long-term disability and death, and narrowing of the arteries in your legs and feet. Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD - narrowing of the arteries in your legs and feet giving you decreased blood flow damaging skin, muscles, nerves and other tissues.

Chronic Kidney Disease; end-stage renal disease (ESRD); damaging blood vessels in the kidneys, impairing their ability to filter waste (leading to…) kidney failure; damage the kidneys over time which may require dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Diabetic Ketoacidosis: the body produces high levels of ketones creating a life-threatening complication where ketones build up in the blood, making it acidic.

HHS: (Hyperosmolar Hyperglycemic State) very high blood sugar leads to severe dehydration and confusion.

Infections: impaired ability to fight off normal infections and more susceptible to complications from common infections. People with diabetes are more susceptible to infections due to impaired immune function and poor blood circulation; diabetic foot infections (potentially requiring amputation) and severe systemic infections like influenza, pneumonia, a severe form of otitis externa (swimmer's ear) that can spread to the surrounding bones and tissues, particularly affecting the temporal bone and often seen in elderly individuals with diabetes; and a potentially fatal fungal infection affecting the sinuses, brain, and sometimes the eye area (aka, rhinocerebral mucormycosis). The last two are almost exclusively seen in people with diabetes and can be life-threatening.

Gum disease

Eye complications

Nerve Damage: numbness, pain, foot ulcers, infections, possible amputations

Foot problems: ulcers and infections, which can sometimes result in AMPUTATION

Vision/Eye problems such as diabetic retinopathy and blindness

Need I say more? I did NOT become diabetic because I “ate too many sweets as a child” or "REALLY let myself go as a teenager". It’s a disease inherited from your parents. And just because you haven’t been diagnosed YET…well, if you keep a porcine diet, OZEMPIC DOES NOT KEEP YOU FROM GETTING TYPE 2 DIABETES!!!!! LOSING WEIGHT, EXCERCISING, AND A GOOD DIET CAN HELP YOU AVOID DEVELOPING TYPE 2 DIABETES…and even then, there’s no guarantee…

Source: (a few of them) https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/type-2-diabetes, https://www.health.com/condition/type-2-diabetes/diabetes-complications-death, https://diabetes.org/ 

Image: https://www.hcd.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/living-well-with-diabetes.jpg

DIABETES RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! #29: Type 2 diabetes mellitus: One of the Pandemics of the 21st Century (World Health Organization/WHO)

From the first moment I discovered I had been diagnosed with DIABETES, I joined a HUGE “club” that has been rapidly expanding since it stopped being a death sentence in the early 20th Century. Currently, there are about HALF A BILLION PEOPLE who have Type 2 Diabetes. For the past 3500 years – dating back to Ancient Egypt – people have suffered from diabetes. Well, I’m one of them now… Not one to shut up for any known reason, I added a section to this blog…

Every month, I’ll be highlighting Diabetes research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you. Today: What Can I DO about one of the Pandemics of the 21st Century?

If you’re like me, your diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes took you by surprise.

What’s even more surprising to me, is that despite being identified as DIFFERENT conditions some 1600 years ago when Type 1 was associated with young people (hence one of the old names, “juvenile onset diabetes”), [HOWEVER, the rates of type 2 diabetes are increasing in young people today]. Type 2 was associated with being fat (I’m just gonna call it here – “overweight” is so cloyingly polite, it makes me cringe. I will call myself as I see me: I’m fat.

You can self-identify as overweight if it makes you feel better…); we’re no closer today to controlling EITHER ONE and rates of type 2 diabetes have increased markedly since 1960 in parallel with obesity.[

It's hardly surprising then that the rate of Type 2 diabetes has been steadily increasing. In the 1970s, the incidence of Type 2 was 2.7%. In the 1980s, the incidence was 3.6% (approximately 30 million in 1985); and the 1990s, it was 5.8%.

As of 2015, approximately 392 million people diagnosed with the disease. Doing a bit of calculation, given that there are now 8 billion people on Earth (8,000,000,000) and that 11% of the population (800,000,000) of Earth has some form of diabetes and that of that: “The latest IDF Diabetes Atlas (2025) reports that 11.1% – or 1 in 9 – of the adult population is living with diabetes and of THAT number, 90% (or 9 of 10) have Type 2.”

“So, what? Why bother me about it? I’m me! I’m not no one else! What are you gonna do about ME????”

Here’s a little more definition to those numbers: “…[they are] living in low-and middle-income countries. More than half of people living with diabetes are not receiving treatment. Both the number of people with diabetes and the number of people with untreated diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past decades.”

“So, whaddya want ME to do aboudit?!?!?!”

What CAN we do about The Other Pandemic? Diabetes is “…the silent epidemic that claims an estimated 6.7 million lives around the world each year – close to the total recorded death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic. One in ten adults is affected by the condition, and it is one of the top 10 causes of death globally.”

You can’t run out and “save the world” from diabetes!

BUT: Here are some things we CAN DO! https://worlddiabetesday.org/ before, during and after World Diabetes Day, Friday, November 14, 2025! And we can start doing SOMETHING now! I’ll be coming back to this in a few weeks!

Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_diabetes , https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circulationaha.106.613828 , https://diabetesatlas.org/media/uploads/sites/3/2025/04/IDF_Atlas_11th_Edition_2025.pdf , https://www.who.int/health-topics/diabetes#tab=tab_1

Image: https://worlddiabetesday.org/