THE PRICE OF PEPTIDES: MY NIGHT IN THE ER

How I stopped my microdose of Tirzepatide and lost one-fourth of the blood in my body.

This week, I published a piece about micro-dosing Tirzepatide to quiet some of my lifelong food noise. And while I loved the fact that I could finally live like a normal person, indulging in food-related activities I’d spent most of my adulthood trying to avoid, I had growing concerns about how the drug was affecting me mentally.

I do think that in the coming years, we will hear more about how GLP1s cause depression, ruin marriages, and rob us of our capacity for feeling joy. These drugs bind to our neurotransmitters, affecting levels of dopamine and serotonin. They change our relationship with food. And I believe they also change our relationship with people and ourselves. It is undeniable that the freedom I’ve experienced on a micro-dose of Tirzepatide was like nothing I ever dreamed possible. And I fully understand the desire to use it. But at what cost?

I’d been worried for the better part of last year that the people around me were changing. Some of my closest friendships were slipping through my fingertips. Loved ones felt detached and distant. They looked great on the outside, but something had dulled inside them. They were quicker to anger and more easily triggered. They were also lost in their thoughts, removed in a way that I couldn’t quite understand.

When I started Tirzepatide, the first thing I noticed was that I was crying more frequently. I couldn’t control the tears that would pour out of me when talking about subjects ranging from kids to open-faced tuna melts. I also noticed this underlying anxiety that would, without warning, after no more than one cup of espresso, take over my body and have me pacing in the kitchen like I’d just snorted an eightball of cocaine. I was more easily offended and quicker to react. I also began to sense that the joy and gratitude I once experienced, those moments of peak happiness, weren’t quite as intense as they used to be. I could feel the joy simmering beneath the surface, but it never reached the pinnacle it once had internally. Even on a rollercoaster, my sense of euphoria was dampened. I couldn’t feel the highs and lows. Satisfaction, personally and professionally, was just out of reach. But all of my musings felt abstract. And others whom I queried didn’t always agree.

Maybe I was just being paranoid. Perhaps other stressors in my life were contributing to my feelings of depression. And even if these side effects were real, were they not worth the freedom I was experiencing around food?