Why Would Someone Who Has Had Weight-Loss Surgery Need to Take Wegovy?
Key takeaways:
Arelis Latorella tried for years to lose weight.
Even after bariatric surgery, she regained what she’d lost.
Today, weekly Wegovy injections are part of her weight-loss toolbox. So far, she says, it’s working.
Access savings on related medications
For years, Arelis Latorella’s weight threatened her health and complicated her efforts to have children. She tried everything she could think of to lose weight, including exercising and curbing her eating.
In 2020, she decided it was time for a bigger step.
Arelis — a 42-year-old wife, mother, and state health worker in the Boston area — had bariatric surgery, altering her stomach to induce weight loss. And it worked. She saw her weight drop by more than 100 lbs.
But in 2023, her weight began to creep up again. She was emotionally eating, she says, including sugary foods. Before she knew it, she had regained 40 lbs. It left her feeling defeated.
“I had cut 80% of my stomach,” she says. “I felt like I had failed.”
She had read about the popularity of Wegovy (semaglutide), a once-weekly injection approved in 2021 by the FDA for chronic weight management.
She had tried other diet medications, to no avail. And she had already tried surgery, which she considered an extreme measure. But she wondered if Wegovy could work as an additional tool to help maintain her weight.
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Diets, pregnancies, and a serious decision
Arelis grew up with a single mother who had emigrated from the Dominican Republic in the early 1970s, bringing with her a culture rich with heaping plates of rice, beans, plantains, and chicken.
“Culturally, I’ve never had any restrictions with food,” Arelis says. “Food was always available, and you are expected to eat big servings.”
In college, she began seeing her weight in a negative light. And she was concerned about her rising cholesterol level. After graduation, she was a social worker. She helped seniors get services and equipment at home, so they could avoid moving to a nursing home. It was emotionally draining.
“Once I got into my adult life, and trying to build my family and my home, I just started slowly gaining weight,” she says.
Arelis and her husband, Jason, started trying to have a child, but she had two miscarriages. She was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal imbalance, but her doctors said her weight was also affecting her fertility.
Despite that, in 2012, she gave birth to her daughter, Jayla.
“She was a miracle, you know, after having two losses,” Arelis says. She and her husband soon tried for a second child. But her challenges had increased and she was premenopausal, making another healthy pregnancy unlikely.
Arelis shifted her focus to losing weight. “I said, ‘All right, I can focus on this other thing now,’ ” she says.
She says she tried “everything under the sun” to get into shape, including WeightWatchers, over-the-counter diet pills, and fitness classes. Nothing seemed to work.
By 2016, she weighed 275 lbs, and she says it was a burden on both her health and spirit.
“We took Jayla to Disney when she was 5, and I just remember trying to go on rides with her and not fitting,” Arelis says. “I said, ‘I need to do something extreme to become healthy.’ ”
In June 2020, she had bariatric surgery. Afterward, she worked through liquid and soft-food stages. She finally began to lose significant amounts of weight, reaching 152 lbs.
She was busy working for the state health department and as a caregiver for her mother and stepfather, who lived nearby.
But by the end of 2022, her weight had risen again, reaching 195 lbs.
When clothes stopped fitting, “my mind still told me that I was still that 275-lb girl,” she says.
She considered taking Wegovy, but she remembered that diet pills made her feel bad. “Why would I do that again?” she says.
For a couple of months, she discussed it in weight-loss support groups before deciding to take it.
Although it can be expensive, her insurance covered it. Her monthly out-of-pocket cost was $24.
Wegovy became part of her tool kit
In January 2023, Arelis started taking once-a-week injections of Wegovy.
It works by simulating GLP-1, an incretin hormone that plays a role in appetite and digestion. This helps slow the movement of food out of your stomach, regulate appetite and fullness, and reduce cravings.
She says the side effects, which are manageable, include nausea and avoiding foods that give her sudden diarrhea. She drinks 64 oz of water a day to avoid constipation.
“It tells you if you eat something that you’re not supposed to,” she says. “It keeps me in check to make better choices when I do want to get those chicken wings or that burger.”
Suddenly, the “hunger cues” that led her to eat were gone. Her tolerance for alcohol has also declined, so she drinks less. But she doesn’t deprive herself.
“If I want chicken wings, I know I can have chicken wings. Can I have six? No. But I can have two, you know, and be satisfied,” she says.
Since she began Wegovy, she has gotten back to where she was after bariatric surgery. “I lost completely all of my regain, all 40 lbs,” she says.
And its benefits have helped her family, too.
“My husband’s been very good with acclimating to my way of eating. When we go out to dinner, we rarely get an entrée. And if we get an entrée, we split it,” she says.
She now bikes and runs, and she doesn’t worry about not fitting into restaurant booths. The airplane seatbelts that were once a source of worry now have plenty of slack.
“I can fit anywhere now,” she says. “We went to Universal Studios [amusement park] this past year in February. I was able to get on every roller coaster.”
Her advice for those in her shoes? Consider a multipronged approach, find a supportive weight-loss community online, form a care team that includes a dietitian, and never be afraid to advocate for yourself in medical settings.
Most of all, she says, avoid seeing setbacks as failures.
“It’s an ongoing journey,” she says. “There’s no ending.”
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