So, you’re interested in giving Semaglutide a try to see if it can help you achieve your fitness and health goals, but you can’t seem to make heads or tails of how it works? You’re in the right place then! Here at Oviedo Med Spa, you will find three amazing Board-Certified Physicians who have extensively researched Semaglutide and have helped so many of their patients through our program! Here is the analogy they use often during our patient consultations.
Here Is an Easy Way to Visualize Semaglutide and Its Effect in the Body:
Semaglutide is a GLP-1 (Glucagon-Like Peptide-1) agonist. Think of an agonist like a helper. Glucagon and insulin work together to control your blood sugar. Glucagon is there for when your “glucose is gone” to raise it back up, and insulin is more like the cleaner for when it gets too high. Semaglutide helps glucagon and increases the amount of insulin your body gets. It also works to keep food in your stomach a little longer, so you feel fuller faster. This helps it lower that hunger-drive you get that makes you want to snack more. By helping you reduce the amount of food you eat, and cleaning up more efficiently after you do eat, it helps you lose weight.
In basic terms, think of your body as a house. Your blood sugar is the day-to-day mess of living in your house, and your insulin is the cleaner of the sugar/mess. When your insulin is effective, it’s like mom and dad are the ones cleaning the house, but when your insulin sensitivity starts to drop, it’s like the kids are cleaning. They’ll mostly get the big stuff, but they don’t typically clean as effectively, and over time, the house starts looking rough. Semaglutide is like hiring a professional cleaning crew to come in and scrub down the walls and dust those vents. If you’re taking the weekly injections, it’s like having professional cleaners consistently assisting you with cleaning your house. Once you stop Semaglutide, however, that cleaning crew is gone. To capitalize on the benefits gained from your Semaglutide injections, you need to ensure that your in-home cleaners are trained to keep up with the standard that was left behind BEFORE the cleaners leave. This can be done by developing a consistent workout regimen, ideally one that prioritizes strength training, as well as building good eating habits so that your cleaning crew is ready for the day the professionals leave the building.
Some of the more common side effects of Semaglutide are stomach cramping, nausea, diarrhea, low blood sugar, and headaches. Most of these symptoms are felt the most when starting Semaglutide, but often ease over time. Some side effects can be severe, such as pancreatitis, kidney damage, gall bladder disease, or thyroid cancer. This is why, before we start any patients on Semaglutide, we run blood tests to ensure they are safe candidates and continue to monitor their vitals and blood levels throughout their course of treatment.
At the end of the day, we are a medical clinic first, and that means “do no harm.” We thoroughly educate our patients, ensure they are not only good but safe candidates, and continually monitor them to safeguard their health. We take every measure to set them up for success, to not only lose the weight, but to teach them how to keep it off long after they are done with their treatments.
