It felt too good to be true.
After years of struggling with her weight, the pounds started flying off Susan Rice, 42, from Georgia.
She was prescribed compound semaglutide, a cheaper, custom-made version of the active drug in Ozempic and Wegovy, in May 2022 and lost a staggering 64lbs in six months.
But then she made a big mistake — she stopped taking the shots.
While compounded semaglutide is much cheaper – $500 compared to $1,000-plus for a month’s supply – insurance doesn’t generally don’t cover it, so she was paying out of pocket.
Ms Rice also spent her savings on a $20,000 ‘mommy makeover’: a tummy tuck to hide the loose skin from her rapid weight loss and breast implants.
So she cut back on her dosage after surgery and eventually forgot to take the appetite-suppressing drug altogether.
She maintained her weight loss for a few months but eventually began eating more, craving sugar and sweets.
While she did have some semaglutide left over, the dose was too small to have any effect, her body had got used to her former dose, which she could no longer afford.
Over the next six months, Ms Rice regained 26 pounds. Now she fears it was all for nothing.
Staci Rice, pictured above in 2022, said she could no longer stomach coffee and only craved water while taking compounded semaglutide
Ms Rice (pictured) lost 64 pounds on compounded semaglutide after using it for six months
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To get back on track Ms Rice took on a digital marketing ‘side hustle’ in late 2024 in addition to her 40-hour a week regular job to afford the medication.
Ms Rice said: ‘I’m going to get back on track and I’m going to get back to where I was.
‘But I hate that I ended up spending a good amount on a mommy makeover.’
Ms Rice told Business Insider her ‘very stressful’ jobs help pay for the low maintenance dose of semaglutide she is now on and she is hoping to get back to her goal weight next month.
A 10-week supply costs her about $305 and she plans on being on the medication long-term.
She feels guilty for putting such financial stress on her family after spending $18,500 on her surgeries.
Looking back, she isn’t sure she would make the same choices.
Still, she calls semaglutide a ‘miracle’ drug and is still a fan of it, saying she is ‘always going to be advocate for it.’
Regaining weight after stopping semaglutide medications, such as Ozempic and Wegovy – originally approved to treat diabetes – is a common side effect.
The drug, which has seen a 300 percent surge in demand since 2020, works by suppressing hormones involved in hunger, keeping you fuller for longer.
Approximately 12 percent of US adults report having ever used a GLP-1 receptor agonist, while six percent indicated they were currently using the therapy.
Some experts have warned those who take the drug must stay on it for life or risk reaching a weight that is higher – and more harmful – than where they started out.
A UK study found people who used Wegovy experienced rapid weight loss, dropping 18 percent of their weight over 68 weeks. They regained two-thirds of that weight, or 12 percent of their original body weight in the year after dropping the weekly injections. Experts say the drug needs to be used over a lifetime to keep off the pounds
Artemis Bayandor, 41, from Illinois, says she is now about 20lbs heavier than before she used Wegovy. She shed 15lbs while on the drug for six months, but quickly gained back all the weight and extra
A study last year found a majority of people who stopped taking semaglutide regained about two-thirds of the weight lost and had worsening health markers, including higher blood pressure and cholesterol and increased risk of heart disease.
And with the high rate of discontinuation – around 85 percent of people discontinue use within two years, and 71 percent stop within the first year – millions of people could be at risk of declining health and becoming obese.
Among these patients is 41-year-old Artemis Bayandor, from Illinois, who was initially thrilled to have lost 15lbs with a six-month course of the drug in August 2021.
But just a month after coming off it she regained all the weight she lost — and over the next few months piled on another 20lbs.
Another patient with a disappointing experience is Meredith Schorr, a nurse in Arizona who gained 50lbs during the pandemic.
She was given a prescription for semaglutide and lost the weight but regained 10lbs when she stopped the medication a year later.
Dr Spencer Nadolsky, an obesity specialist and founder of a virtual health clinic specializing in these drugs, told Business Insider regaining weight is one of the biggest risks when stopping semaglutide and called for the medications to be more affordable so people can stay on them long-term.
He said: ‘Obesity is a chronic disease and these medicines work by helping people manage their appetite and food noise.
‘The cost of these medicines must come down. And if insurance doesn’t cover them, it would be ideal that the cost would be low enough to pay out-of-pocket for them. The medicines are not a short-term fix. They are designed and used for the chronic disease of obesity.’
