The end of my Mounjaro Experiment
I knew it was a longshot. And even though the experiment failed, I also think it might have worked.
I’ve had OCD my entire life. Scientists don’t know much about OCD other than that it’s an anxiety disorder and that you can try to blunt the symptoms by throwing lots of SSRI’s at it. But they don’t know what causes OCD or how to treat the underlying problem.
As the miracle of GLP-1 drugs became apparent, some experts started suggesting that the same properties in the drug that are helping people end their cravings and addictions could apply to help curb compulsive thinking. For me, that would be life changing — to get rid of the voice in my head constantly whirring around at top speed, thinking through whatever’s bothering me over and over and over again.
So I went to an endocrinologist, explained my goal, she explained the side effects and downsides and said it was worth a shot. And so I took one right there on the spot, and then three more shots of Munjaro over the next three weeks.
The physical impact was immediate — my appetite disappeared almost overnight. The problem is, I didn’t need to lose weight. Things got a little muddled when I then went to Japan, ate horse sashimi (I know), promptly got food poisoning and lost ten pounds. It was unclear what role the Munjaro played in the weight loss but even two weeks after returning home, the weight kept coming off and my stomach remained a minefield.
I’ve lost 15 pounds since I started taking the drug. That’s too much. I have no appetite, so consuming enough calories has been difficult (I even started drinking nutritional meal supplements to try to replace the calories). Preserving muscle mass in your 50s is really important and this was taking me in the opposite direction.
But what about the benefit? My psychiatrist told me that I wouldn’t really notice the impact — if there was to be one at all — until I did, meaning that for as long as I was compulsively thinking about whether I was thinking compulsively, it wouldn’t work.
It didn’t. And then maybe it did.
I do feel calmer. I feel a little less anxious. A little more grounded in the here and now. I’m able to worry a little less about things that I either can’t control or that will unfold in time no matter how much I obsess about them right now. I’m a little better able to accept that life comes with its share of problems and that complete absence of any worry or distress cannot be the baseline for happiness. I feel like I’m finally living less by checklist and more by the moment. It feels really good.
But I keep losing weight. I also don’t really enjoy my food anymore, and the other side effects are still prevalent too. So I’m stopping the Munjaro. The question is whether I can take the perspective I gained (I don’t know if it was from the medicine or psychosomatic or if there’s even a difference in this case) and apply that going forward.
Logically, there’s no reason I can’t. Understanding what truly matters and doesn’t, what’s truly within my control and what isn’t, doesn’t require taking a GLP-1. While the Munjaro helped me feel more present, I could put more effort into meditation and mindfulness. And I finally realized during this stretch that when I write down my anxieties and think through them on paper, it tends to put my mind at ease and allows me to move on.
I’m looking forward to having an appetite again. Hopefully I can regain the weight and muscle I lost in a few months. For me, Munjaro was not a miracle drug, but in the brief time I took it, it had an impact. And if I were diabetic or struggling to beat a serious addiction, then the tradeoff would be easily worth it. I think there is tremendous potential in this new class of drugs to help, potentially, hundreds of millions of people. And even if the tradeoffs to help address OCD weren’t worth it this time around for me, they still could be for others. It was worth a shot.