Futter’s supplier, Henry Meds, not affords compounded tirzepatide injections, however allowed sufferers to put bulk orders earlier than phasing it out. He went forward and ordered a number of months’ value of vials however doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he runs out. “I’m extraordinarily nervous about what’s going to occur,” he says. “I am eking each drop I can out of each vial to make it stretch a bit bit longer.” (As of publication, Henry Meds is providing new and present sufferers the flexibility to bulk order 40 weeks of semaglutide injections. Henry Meds didn’t reply to a request for remark.)
Jim Bertel, a 41-year-old who lives in Colorado and credit tirzepatide for altering his life, was additionally in a position to stockpile his compounded GLP-1 remedy earlier than his supplier stopped promoting it. He’s uncertain of what he’s going to do when he runs out later this month, and he’s spending time scouring Reddit and Fb boards to seek out which telehealth corporations are nonetheless providing variations of the medicine. “Proper now my plan is to take it month by month,” he says. “Hopping from supplier to supplier.”
Jessie, 40, who requested to be recognized by her first identify solely, turned to a medical spa to get compounded medicines when she couldn’t get constant entry by way of her insurance coverage or main care supplier. Her supplier initially wrote her a prescription for Wegovy, however she says it was “contact and go” getting it crammed. She was in a position to complement with a compounded model from the med spa when it wasn’t obtainable. However on the finish of final yr, Jessie obtained a letter from her insurance coverage firm saying it might not cowl Wegovy. Then her main care supplier stopped writing prescriptions for weight reduction medicines, saying they have been an excessive amount of of a trouble. She went again to the med spa and was in a position to get compounded semaglutide as just lately as April, however the facility stated it couldn’t assure provide shifting ahead. She’s now contemplating shopping for the drug from Mexico since she travels typically to San Diego for work. “It is the identical meds, you do not want a prescription, and it is cheaper,” she says. In Mexico, brand-name Wegovy can be purchased for around $200 a month.
Spotty insurance coverage protection has helped drive demand for compounded GLP-1 merchandise. Regardless of Wegovy and Zepbound being permitted for sufferers with a physique mass index of 30 or better, and 27 or better for these with no less than one weight-related ailment, some insurance coverage require the next BMI or further standards for protection—in the event that they cowl medicines for weight problems in any respect. “The entire underlying theme right here is that this stigma and bias of not recognizing weight problems as a illness like we do most cancers and diabetes and the whole lot else,” says Florencia Halperin, an endocrinologist and chief medical officer at Kind Well being, a web based medical weight reduction clinic, “For most cancers, you’ll by no means have an employer who says, ‘We’re not overlaying this.’”
Amanda Bonello, founder and CEO of the GLP-1 Collective, a nonprofit group aiming to assist sufferers entry these medicines, shouldn’t be stunned on the lengths sufferers are going to. Bonello, who herself has taken compounded GLP-1 merchandise, says for a lot of sufferers she’s spoken to, the impression of those medicines is not only in regards to the weight itself.
