A woman regained weight after she stopped taking semaglutide. Now she works two jobs to afford it.
Staci Rice
- Staci Rice lost 64 pounds on a compounded form of the weight loss drug semaglutide.
- It was expensive so she tried to maintain her weight loss without the medication, and gained 26 pounds.
- Rice started a side hustle so she could go back on the medication.
The weight loss drug semaglutide was a "miracle" for Staci Rice, making cravings and "food noise" disappear and helping her to lose 64 pounds in around eight months.
To afford to keep taking the drug, she started a side-hustle in digital marketing alongside the 40-hours a week she worked to get her new insurance business off the ground.
Semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy for weight loss and Ozempic for diabetes, is part of the family of appetite-suppressing drugs called GLP-1s, which includes products such as Mounjaro. Many insurance companies cover the drugs for diabetes but not weight loss.
Rice, 42, from Georgia, is among users who take compounded GLP-1s that aren't FDA-approved, because they are significantly cheaper than branded products that can cost around $1,000 a month.
In August 2024, Eli Lilly reduced the price of its GLP-1 Zepbound by almost 50% to compete with knock-offs. It now sells for $399 to $549 a month, down from $1,059. In November, the Biden administration proposed a new rule to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage to include GLP-1s for weight loss, but it's unclear if President Donald Trump will follow through.
But even the compounded form, which cost Rice $499 at the time, was expensive.
Rice stopped using semaglutide and gained 20 pounds
Rice started taking weekly injections of semaglutide in May 2022. After she achieved her goal of losing 64 pounds, she saved up for a $18,500 "mommy makeover" (tummy tuck and breast augmentation) in April 2023, she told Business Insider.
GLP-1 users are encouraged to build up from a low dose to minimize side effects like nausea and constipation. At first, a $499 supply lasted Rice three months, reducing to a month as she upped the dose.
After the surgery, she started injecting the medication less frequently to maintain her weight rather than lose more. In early 2024, money was tight after Rice changed jobs and semaglutide seemed like something she could cut back on. She bought the compounded drug online, so she made these changes without the guidance of a medical professional.
Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, an obesity specialist and founder of a virtual health clinic specializing in GLP-1s, told BI that it's not advisable to change doses without consulting a doctor.
"I thought that I could go less and less, and eventually, I got to where I was forgetting to take the injection," Rice said. "I was thinking I had this, I was thinking, 'Now I'm set. I don't need to take the medicine anymore.'"
Staci Rice
Rice maintained her weight for a couple of months. And although she started eating more, she presumed it wouldn't affect her progress.
But the "food noise" in Rice's head — cravings for sugar and sweet treats when experiencing heightened emotions — gradually returned, and she regained 26 pounds over about six months.
Rice had a small amount of medication left which she would take now and then, but it wasn't enough to lose weight, and she couldn't afford her previous maintenance dose.
"I started to notice my clothes were getting tighter," Rice said. Knee problems, a swollen finger, and various other aches and pains returned.
Nadolsky said he'd seen clients who abruptly stopped taking GLP-1s because their insurance no longer covered them or there were shortages. However, regaining weight is the biggest risk associated with coming on and off the medicine, he said.
"Obesity is a chronic disease and these medicines work by helping people manage their appetite and food noise," he said. "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."
Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, the CEO of Novo Nordisk which makes Ozempic and Wegovy, has previously blamed insurers and middlemen for the high prices of the drugs.
A side hustle to fund semaglutide
Towards the end of 2024, Rice had started her side hustle and restarted the medication on a low dose to minimize costs, deciding when to start and stop without medical guidance. The cost was different depending on the provider, and she used the money from her "very stressful" jobs to pay for it.
She now takes a low weekly dose (0.25 milligrams was her lowest, and her highest 2.5 milligrams). A 10-week supply costs her $305, and she is budgeting to afford it.
"I'm going to get back on track and I'm going to get back to where I was," Rice said. "But I hate that I ended up spending a good amount on a mommy makeover."
Rice said she feels guilty that she put her family in a financial bind and, if she could go back in time, isn't sure she would have had the surgery.
She hopes she'll be back at her goal weight by February, and then plans to stay on a maintenance dose long-term. She sees regaining the weight as a valuable lesson that maintainance without medication isn't as easy as she thought.
"It is a miracle medicine," Rice said. "I'm always going to be an advocate for it."