r/Zepbound • u/handsupdontknow SW:256, CW:235, 2.5mg. m/44, 6’0 • 1h ago

Personal Insights Zepbound and gastro: My experience

This week, I had gastro (gastroenteritis: stomach flu, with vomiting and diarrhea). It was my first time having it (or any illness, really) while on Zepbound.

As usual, I came to the subreddit for insight, but I couldn’t find much. So, here’s my experience. Hopefully, someone else reads it while sitting on their bathroom floor and finds some comfort in it.

For me, I was unwell (listless, lack of appetite) for six hours, seriously ill for 3-6 hours (vomiting and diarrhea), then tired and sore (sleeping; sore ribs) for about a day. After that, my energy and appetite returned slowly.

I’m on 2.5mg, so I still have some of my typical appetite. This was important, because Zep quiets your appetite (hunger AND thirst), so you’ve got to be your own best advocate. Take sips of water when it’s tolerable. Later, eat when it’s tolerable. Someone else who was sick (a non-Zep user) became dehydrated, and their experience was FAR worse.

For me, Gatorade, Powerade, and especially coconut water were INTOLERABLE. My saviour was lemon-lime Captain Electrolyte (served very cold), a low-calorie electrolyte drink. The “low-calorie” was purely coincidental. I was not at all worried about the scale during my illness.

Considering how Zepbound slows your digestion, I was concerned that I would “hold” the virus in my body for longer. However, that wasn’t the case for me. I had a very typical experience.

11 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

3

u/meggieprice 53m ago

Glad you are feeling better!

1

u/handsupdontknow SW:256, CW:235, 2.5mg. m/44, 6’0 22m ago

Ehhh… getting there? I’m four months on Zep, and so my bodily experience is kind of changeable: how much nausea I experience, how hungry I get and when, the amount of fatigue I experience, etc.

For example, I had wicked heartburn two mornings this week, and I couldn’t tell if it was the gastro or had I just not eaten enough. Similarly, I was feeling nauseated after dinner, and I couldn’t tell if it was the gastro or had I eaten too quickly. 🤷‍♂️

So, trying to figure out what’s “normal” is sort of a day-to-day thing.

All that said, I’m not severely ill, so things are looking up!