When James Norris, a 56-year-old mechanic from Roxbury, New Jersey, went to a low dose of Mounjaro, a GLP-1 drug-like drug, to lose weight in March 2023, he thought it would be a miracle remedy.
With 289 pounds, he had fought to lose weight for years with diet and exercise. His wife had lost 60 pounds in a few months in medication, and her success persuaded her to give her a shot.
“I just couldn’t keep my weight – [the drug] It looked like a good alternative, ”he said.
In the following year, he lost 89 pounds and was able to remove the medication he was taking for high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Then, in March 2024, shortly after his doctor raised his dose to 2.5 milligrams (he would begin with 1.5 mg), he woke up one morning with a new vision in his left eye. Two weeks later, the vision in his right eye became unclear.
“I don’t know what was happening,” said Norris, who initially thought a sinus infection could be blamed.
But after receiving a CT scan and without a neuro-chulner, it was found that he had ischemic non-arteteric ischemic ischemic neuropathy (Naion), a condition in which the loss of blood flow to the optic nerve causes sudden vision loss.
“I was destroyed,” he said. “Extremely is extremely rare get naion in both eyes.”
Recent studies have shown a link between medicines such as Ozepic, Mounjaro and Wegovy – which have become phenomenally known for weight loss – and an increased risk of Naion.
Of the 15 million rated Americans who now take such medicines for type 2 diabetes and weight loss, only a few relatives have experienced the matter, but for those they have, it is a life change.
“I’ve been a mechanic all my life – I can’t do anything anymore,” said Norris, who stopped taking Mounjaro around July 2024, but there is a significantly damaged vision.
Now he mainly does administrative work from a computer and believes that the risk of medication, especially in higher doses, is not worth it.
While it is unclear how many people in these drugs are experiencing issues of vision, Norris’s lawyer, Robert King, said his firm has only received “hundreds” of GLP-1 drugs and cases loss of vision.
“The biggest thing is the large number of cases of eye damage about something that is supposed to be gastrointestinal drugs and the fact that no one will suspect a weight loss medicine will immediately blind them in one eye,” King, who is centered on Rochester, NY, told the post.
A collection made by doctors-scientists from the John A. Moran Center of UTAH University published in JAMA OPHTHALMOLOGY on January 30, 2025, looked at nine patients who reported vision after receiving semaglutide or tirzepatide, active ingredients in Ozepic, Wegovy, Mounjaro.
They found that patients taking these drugs developed three potentially dazzling conditions that affect the optic nerve – the eye that sends visual signals to the brain.
Of the nine patients, seven reported Naion -like symptoms; One had papill, an inflammation of the optic nerve head; And an individual developed acute acute acute maculopathy, which can cause a blind spot in vision.
The January study came to the July heels 2024 Research by Mass Eye and Ear, a teaching hospital at Harvard Medical School. He found a link between semaglutides and an increased Naion danger.
Diabetics taking medication were found to be four times more at risk for Nao than those who were not in medication. Those who were overweight or thick and taking the medicine to lose weight were seven times more at risk.
Norris was not aware of any such risks when he went to the medicine.
“I didn’t know it could happen,” he said, stressing that he plans to file a lawsuit against drug manufacturer Mounjaro Lilly and Company.
Ozepic and Mounjaro rank “Vision Changes” as a possible side effect on their websites, while Wegovy lists “Vision change in people with type 2 diabetes”. None of the websites clearly warns the users for Naion.
A spokesman for Lilly, the US company that makes Mounjaro, as well as similar Zepbound, said patient safety is a “main advantage” and they “are actively involved in monitoring, evaluation and reporting of security information for all our medicines.”
A spokesman for Novo Nordisk, the Danish manufacturer of Ozepic and Wegovy, told the post “Naion is a very rare eye disease, and is not a negative drug reaction.” They said that after evaluating the research and an internal security assessment, “Novo Nordisk is of the opinion that the risk profile of the semaglutide benefits remains unchanged.”
Dr. Joseph Rizzo, a professor of occulmology at Harvard Medical School and a senior author in the study published in Jama Ophthalmology, told the post that he is not fully discouraging people to take these medicines, but those who already have vision loss should continue carefully.
“Let’s say they don’t have diabetes, but they have advanced glaucoma, then I would be extremely careful in taking the medicine – you are not starting from a normal visual status,” he told the post.
Michael Sabellico based in San Diego, 60, had a normal vision when he continued Ozepic in March 2024 to lose weight and manage his type 2 diabetes.
When he started, he weighed 185 pounds and had a perfect appearance. After eight weeks at a dose of 1.5 mg, it was below five pounds. But then he woke up one morning and could not see it clearly.
An optometrist found that his optical nerve was inflamed and diagnosed it with Naion. He was given a steroid to help inflammation.
But because there was no research at the time when the Naion connection with GLP-1, doctors also raised his dose of Ozepic to manage his blood sugar.
He did not stop Ozepica until May 2024, at that point his vision was permanently damaged.
He now has 20/70 vision in his left eye and below average 20/30 vision in his right eye.
“If I had a piece on my right eye it would be difficult to read,” said Sabellico, who is now managing his diabetes with drugs and plans to take legal action. “The letters are thrown around.”
Cheryl Bovee, a 56-year-old former retailer from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has already taken legal action against Novo Nordisk. She filed a lawsuit in February claiming that the company’s marketing was “misleading and misleading for the real risks associated with it [the] The use of ozepic. “
She is legally blind after Naion’s development while using Ozempic as directed by her doctors to manage her type 2 diabetes last year. She was not in remedies for losing weight and it is unclear how her weight changed while she was, her lawyer noted.
What is clear, however, is that its vision has been severely degraded.
“I can’t work anymore. I can’t drive anymore. I have to be careful just walking through my block. I can’t see the night, “Bovee said.” IT’S’S MY LIFE MY. “
A widow, she had hoped to spend her pension traveling and spending time with her family. Now she worries that she is able to take care of herself.
“I no longer have the hope of seeing my grandchildren. I no longer hope to see their faces clearly. I can have no independence – I will not be able to live on my own,” she said.
“All my hopes and dreams are broken.”
#People #fall #blind #medicines #losing #weight #ozepic #Mounjaro
Image Source : nypost.com