I’ve been a regular passenger on the weight-loss/weight-gain train, packing on and shedding hundreds of pounds in my 58 years.

I became a Weight Watchers Lifetime Member at 24, having lost 50 pounds in about a year. Shortly thereafter, I began my 26-year career at the Times Publishing Co. and slowly gained all the weight I’d lost, and then some. Food was everywhere at the paper. Food days. Birthday cookies. Election night pizza pig-outs. Sampling the fruits of food columnist Jennie Geisler’s labors.

I couldn’t pass it by. Even if I wasn’t hungry. Food calls to me.

My mom loved telling the story about finding me sitting in front of the refrigerator — asleep — eating potato salad from the big green Tupperware bowl. I’d resisted it all day during a picnic, but my sleeping self had other ideas.

Recent studies have shown that weight gain and the inability to lose weight aren’t tied to a lack of discipline. In an Aug. 14, 2023, Wall Street Journal story, Dr. Florencia Halperin, an endocrinologist and chief medical officer of Form, a virtual medical weight-loss clinic, said, “This is not about willpower or personal choice. This is about your brain driving behaviors.”

“The success of the powerful new class of diabetes and weight-loss drugs shows how important chemistry is to determining a person’s weight,” the story reported. “The brain is the body’s chief chemist, regulating appetite and making it difficult for many people to shed pounds and keep them off. The brain determines how much fat it wants people to carry, according to years of research bolstered by the new drugs. …

“The new medicines have put some long-held assumptions about weight and health on the chopping block. ‘What these drugs have proven is that patients are right: It’s not their fault,’ said Dr. Louis Aronne, an obesity treatment specialist and professor of metabolic research at Weill Cornell Medical College.”

In September of 2022 — after trying Weight Watchers, yet again; working with a dietitian for several months, using the app MyFitnessPal to track calories and macros; and trying the prescription drugs Phentermine and Topamax — I asked my family doctor if I could try one of the “new” weight-loss drugs: Ozempic or Mounjaro.

I’m terrified of needles and knew these weight-loss drugs came via weekly self-injections, but I was desperate. I’d read plenty of success stories, and I was eager to give it a whirl.

She prescribed Ozempic and told me if I didn’t lose 5% of my body weight in three months, I’d need to stop taking it.

But it worked. I lost weight. It felt nothing short of amazing, and I experienced only one side effect, which was easily tamped down.

In addition to suppressing hunger by slowing the emptying of my stomach, it quieted the “food noise” in my brain. I didn’t think about food. I could have passed on that potato salad with no problem.

My doctor and her nurses have gone above and beyond to help me. My insurance required prior authorization forms. Details were shared about my weight, high blood pressure, prescription drugs I take that thwart weight loss, failed measures I’ve taken. Additional prior auths were requested because the drug’s cost exceeded my insurance’s allowable maximum.

In May of 2023, I got a letter saying my insurance would no longer cover Ozempic. My doctor then prescribed Wegovy, which is identical to Ozempic but marketed for weight loss. She submitted the required prior authorizations, but I discovered the lower doses of Wegovy, which I needed to start with, weren’t available at any local pharmacies or through my prescription mail order company.

She then prescribed Saxenda, which also required multiple prior authorization forms and, as luck would have it, a local pharmacy soon had it in stock. I’ve taken it — via daily injections — for a few months, ramping up to the highest dose, which tamped down the food noise and my appetite somewhat. But now Saxenda is out of stock everywhere I’ve checked.

In early January, my doctor sent a prescription for Zepbound, the weight-loss version of Mounjaro, to LillyDirect, a new website launched by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, the drugs’ manufacturer. I’ve been told my insurance covers it and requires no prior authorizations. I’m still waiting for confirmation that the prescription’s been received and information about costs, but I’m assured they’re “working on it.” A customer service rep told me the website has been bombarded by Zepbound requests.

It’s complicated, I’m sure, as is just about everything health-care-related in the U.S.

I was billed about $100 for a recent ER visit — which included a CT scan, X-ray, and bloodwork. But I had to pay nearly $800 for a basic test done during my annual “well-woman exam.” Why? The test was diagnostic, not preventative.

I’m lucky that my insurance has ultimately covered these medications, thus far. Ozempic cost me $30 each month, while Saxenda’s price tag was $60.

According to The Washington Post writer Ruth Marcus, Medicare covers obesity screening and behavioral counseling, and in severe cases of obesity, bariatric surgery. “But it is prohibited by law — the 2003 statute that created the Medicare prescription drug benefit — from paying for ‘weight loss’ medications,” she wrote in a June 6, 2023, column. “This is nonsensical and antiquated; when the prescription drug benefit was enacted, these new anti-obesity medications didn’t exist. Indeed, the American Medical Association didn’t recognize obesity as a chronic disease until 2013.”

More: Trulicity, Ozempic, other diabetes drugs in short supply at Erie-area pharmacies

I know others haven’t been as lucky when it comes to insurance covering these new weight-loss meds. I’ve read about people turning to compounding pharmacies to get alleged copy-cat versions of Ozempic and Mounjaro. Others get the medications from Canada and other countries. Out-of-pocket costs can run more than $1,000 every month.

I don’t have any answers.

All I know is — thanks to the new medications — I feel so much better in my skin. My blood pressure is down, allowing me to stop taking one prescription drug. And I don’t circle the kitchen like a shark, thinking about what I’ll nibble on next.

Sherry Rieder worked at the Times Publishing Co. for 26 years. She’s worked at Mercyhurst University since 2016.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Sherry Rieder describes power of new weight loss drugs, access issues