Zepbound: Week 5
In which I mess up. Oops.
Week 5 tl;dr: I saw my sleep doctor this week. (He’s the one who’s managing my Zepbound for sleep apnea.) I found out I messed up big time! I’m changing my format below to reflect broader categories. Zepbound shot #5, 5ml.
Zepbound
I saw my sleep doctor on Monday and had a good conversation with him. Officially per their records I’ve lost 16 lbs. He was blown away by that and he asked how I felt on it. I replied that it was working great, I wasn’t hungry at all. My answer caused him to look at me and say, “Are you sure you’re taking the right dose?” To which I confidently replied, “Yep, I’m taking one vial per the instructions on the package!”Wrong answer. Apparently he prescribed me 10ml vials and intended for me to take a quarter of a vial at a time (2.5ml). He prescribed it this way to save me money. I misunderstood his instructions, because it doesn’t match up to what’s on the med label on the med box. I have seven kids and manage the meds and medical stuff for four of them, so unless it’s written on the box, it isn’t always going to stay in my head. So I’ve been accidentally dosing myself for the last four weeks with a dose of Zepbound towards the high end of what is usually prescribed! I told my wife and she said, “wow, you really jumped straight in the deep end, didn’t you?!” then we both howled with laughter. (We laugh a lot about our stupid mistakes that don’t hurt us. We even laugh about the ones that do hurt, but usually after the bleeding has stopped.)
So, yeah, my weight loss is remarkable because my dose was four times what it should have been, and also this explains the intense side effects I’ve been having. I now understand that I am supposed to use the vial for more than one shot, and I will be taking 5ml for the next several weeks. :D I am looking forward to fewer side effects and enjoying food more! But wow have I noticed the impact—I’ve lost a lot of fat around my middle and I’m down a size in pants already.
Side note: my doctor said that the Zepbound isn’t supposed to stop your hunger, which is what happened to me. He said I should feel hungry but get full sooner than usual. So that’s what I’m hoping will happen after my next 5ml shot.
Sleep
I came prepared with Oura data for my appointment with my doctor. I took each night’s worth of sleep data and put it into a spreadsheet. I’m a total data nerd and I love doing stuff like this, so I was stoked to share it with the doctor.
Looking at the past month of data turned out to be really helpful. I can see that on average I don’t get nearly enough REM or deep sleep each night, plus my various other metrics are often not great either. This is a typical night for me:
I showed the doctor my collected data and he said, “Jen, you really don’t sleep well, do you?!”
He also said no more prazosin because it was making my morning blood pressure too low and not helping with the PTSD dreams. We are going to try some different meds to help the sleep stuff; the new one is not yet ready at the pharmacy but I’m curious to see whether it helps. For years I have held no hope that improving my sleep was even possible, and I’m starting to feel a bit of hope that I might actually sleep well again someday.
Another side note: my sleep issues are so far beyond the realm of good ‘sleep hygiene’ helping because of PTSD, mostly. I do most of the good sleep hygiene stuff anyway by now, except the no screens rule. If I don’t play games or scroll or somehow entertain my brain until I’m sleepy, I end up spiraling into thought patterns that keep me awake longer. I’ve been like this since I can remember; I used to stay up until 1 am playing solitaire until I could sleep when I was in elementary school. I’m still working on this, but for the moment, my screens are my sleepy time helpers. I’d read books if I were less tired; when I’m this tired I can’t keep the thread of the narrative, sadly.
Exercise
Of course being so tired doesn’t help with being able to function enough to exercise. The kids and I made a bunch of plans to do stuff together this week and I had to cancel our climbing sessions because I couldn’t stay awake. Krav maga is going to have to wait until I have enough energy to go, sadly. In the meantime I think we might climb again soon and I’ve got a ton of gardening work to do. That will have to suffice.
Other notes
I’m curiously noticing some other things happening to me that I suspect are partly attributable to the Zepbound. Now that the food noise isn’t as loud, I feel like I have more capacity to hear other things inside my brain. And now that I’m feeling more energetic and my stamina is growing, I’m moving around and doing more. I’ve got projects again and they feel like I might be able to complete them. That is exciting and fun, and I haven’t felt like this in a couple of years at least. It’s an interesting impact that I hadn’t expected. I’m curious to see where this takes me.
Onward!