Stuff Going on in Our GLP-1 World

Cardiac CT Scan

I had a Cardiac CT Scan on Sunday, August 18, 2024 at 7:30am. It was great because no one was at the hospital and I had the techs all to myself. Both of whom were amazing. One guy knows Dr. Shravan Ambati, the doctor who saved my life 2.5 years ago, as well as my Cardiologist. The other tech and I talked about losing a lot of weight and how freaky it is to fit through turnstiles and how we still look at chairs and wonder if we will break them. She is even smaller than my now 160 lbs.

The CT was easy and quick and I look forward to the results in a couple of days. Gotta love Patient Portals!

A couple of pics the tech took of me going in and sitting on the machine’s table.

Results of Cardiac CT

Ugh. I was so hoping for a clean bill or health from the CT, but alas, my life as a super-obese patient, has caused damage that has not disappeared. Yet.

I got a message a couple of days ago from my cardiologist that I need a Cardiac Catheterization asap and they were waiting on insurance approval. That was on a Friday. It’s Sunday now. I suspect I will hear from them tomorrow.

Of course, I looked up cardiac catheterization because I know zero about it. My mom had one at 70+ years old and it went well. It seems common enough, so I am not worried or scared. The cardiologist did say if I needed a stent, they would bring in a specialist to place it at that time. I’m still learning about the procedure. I think I’m sticking my head in the sand a little bit because I really had hoped I would be heart problem-free.

Okay, I looked stent up. It’s a mesh circular thing that opens the blocked artery and keeps it open. Reading, it was making me not feel so good, so I stopped reading for now.

Interestingly, I have not thought about drinking amaretto since I started Mounjaro a year ago, but as I was reading all of this information, I had an urge to drink some amaretto. I won’t do it, mainly because the last time I did, it tasted like caca, but I also don’t want the 300,000 calories a sip of amaretto has.

Breathing.

Update when I get the date of the procedure.

Physical Therapy

I’m going to PT twice a week and doing all of my PT exercises every day. I love doing the exercises! They feel soooo good on my back and the pain that goes down my left leg from the 9 bulging discs (or at least one of them) I have in my spine. Who knew laying backwards on a wedge could feel so fabulous? I’m even lifting weights and using the pully thing to stir my cauldron.

The only thing I do not like, because it doesn’t make me feel good and is hard as hell to do is the arm bicycle thing. Ugh.

Reading Diabetes & GLP-1 News

I want to share so many things, but don’t have time to write about all of them in detail. Therefore, here is a list of items I am intrigued and interested in that I’ve wanted to share with y’all. Please delve deeper if it interests you, too.

“5 Things Parents Considering Weight Loss Drugs
for Their Kids Need To Know”

From CafeMom, these five things you need to know about your children starting GLP-1s:

1. How long would kids need to take weight loss medication?
2. Currently, there is no specific age when kids should start taking the medication.
3. Yes, diet and exercise are still important.
4. What about side effects?
5. There are legitimate concerns that children using weight loss drugs can lead to them developing eating disorders.

Read the article. It’s very helpful.

“Healthy Returns: Here’s what GLP-1s are being tested for
beyond weight loss, diabetes”

From Money Report, it’s fascinating to see what else will be tackled as the years move forward with our GLP-1s. We certainly have heard of several of these, but this article goes into detail about whose product is being tested for these illnesses.

• Cardiovascular health
• Chronic Kidney Disease (which I have… CKD3a)
• Fatty Liver Disease (which I had)
• Sleep Apnea
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Addiction, including smoking and alcohol

“Is Metabolically Healthy Obesity an ‘Illusion’?”

From Medscape, an interesting piece that says what I have been saying for a couple of decades. Just because you have overweight or obesity and are healthy now does not mean you will be healthy in ten years.

Sure, my labwork improved while I was on Fen-Phen in 1996. My labs were fantastic after the RNY Gastric Bypass for a couple of years. Even as my labwork has been pristine on Trulicity and Mounjaro, my spine is crushed because of my lifelong weight issues. As I said above, I am also having to deal with heart issues that accumulated over my time as super-morbidly obese.

For now, you might be fat and healthy, but it catches up to you eventually. Unless you are having more than your labs done… spinal imaging, heart monitoring, kidney and liver testing… you cannot tell me that you are fat and healthy. And if you really are now, I promise, you won’t be in the future.

“‘Subtle Changes’ to the 2024 ADA Standards of Care in Diabetes”

From Medscape, Anne L. Peters, MD shares a few of the changes to the care of those of us with diabetes. I have Type 2 diabetes and was diagnosed in 1995.

• Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes
• Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes
• Hemoglobin A1c levels for diagnosing diabetes.
• Needing a second test to confirm diabetes diagnosis
• Needing an alternative to the HbA1c to measure chronic diabetes
• Screening people who have an episode of pancreatitis to test for diabetes (especially important to those taking GLP-1s)
• Screening folks with prediabetes because they might be future Type 1 and not future Type 2 diabetes
• Treating bone health in diabetics
• Added risk screening in psychosocial health
• Treatment of those with Type 1 diabetes during pregnancy
• Those who care for people with diabetes need more specialized education

Finishing This Off

I’m going to stop now and get this out to you all.

Comment below if you have questions or thoughts. I always love hearing from you!

(Really trying not to be so bummed, but the sadness if enfolding me. I think I’ll cry.)