Here at The Free Press, we pride ourselves on having honest conversations—ones that make us think and feel differently, and perhaps even change our minds. Sometimes that means an Honestly conversation with Bari. Sometimes that means a heated debate around the office water cooler or on a stage in Dallas. But even more of those conversations come from the incredible letters we get from Free Press readers, like you.
Unfortunately, we can’t publish them all. But each month, we print a handful of the letters that really made us think.
By now, we hope you’ve read Suzy Weiss’s iconic ode to Ozempic. She argued passionately that for women, the advent of the Ozempic pill “could be as revolutionary as The Pill.”
Suzy’s piece quickly became quite the talker, as she wrote in her column a few days later. So today, we’re bringing you three different reader responses.
First, Mike Sokolow told us that he is starting his own GLP-1 journey. Even though some weight-loss drugs “are looking more and more like a miracle,” as Suzy’s article put it, Mike said that he can’t help feeling “scared to death”—for himself and for the women around him.
I am scared to death. Over the past several years, my glucose levels and A1C numbers have been climbing, and this year I went to a slew of doctors to get my health generally on track. I am 57 years old, and it seems like if I ever want to make it for a few more decades, now would be the time to address everything I can. I have maintained my same BMI of 34 for seven years, classifying me as “obese.” I’m a chubby hubby, but my blood pressure and cholesterol are good (thanks to pills), so now it’s time for glucose and weight.
Although one pill did wonders for me over the past three months and pushed my numbers down in the right direction, my new diabetes doctor urged me to take the shots. These semaglutides are literally designed for me, and I am taking them under medical care for the right reasons. So now I am a pincushion, doing a glucose stick every morning and shooting up with Mounjaro, which only costs me $15 per month, thanks to health insurance. According to the bathroom scale, I am down eight pounds since two weeks ago.
What will happen when we double and triple it in a month? Are there long-term risks and side effects? Is Suzy right to call this a miracle? I know my Bible pretty well, and no miracle ever comes without consequences or fallout.