ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A Tampa Bay area woman is sharing her struggles with weight loss and how a drug for type 2 diabetes helped her shed 182 pounds over three years.
“It’s something I struggled with my entire life,” said Tara Rothenhoefer.
Rothenhoefer thinks the first diet she was on was Weight Watchers when she was just 13 years old.
“I think the biggest thing for me is I have a 12-year-old son and now I have a one-year-old granddaughter, and I want to be around a long time for them, and after losing a sister, my oldest sister, to complications from obesity, that was really an eye-opener for me, and I didn’t want to be that. I didn’t want that to be my story,” said Rothenhoefer.
In 2020, she took part in an 18-month trial studying tirzepatide, the clinical name for the drug Mounjaro, and its effects on weight loss.
“It was pretty clear very shortly after starting that I did get the medication because, within three or four days, I found like I’m not thinking about food. It curbed your appetite. It took away what people have come to call food noise,” said Rothenhoefer. “In the first six months, I lost 70 to 80 pounds.”
She also worked with a nutritionist throughout the trial to incorporate healthy lifestyle changes.
When the trial ended and with the medication not yet available, Rothenhoefer had to stop taking the drug and did gain some weight back despite making healthy choices. She was later able to get a prescription to continue using Mounjaro.
“When I started the trial in 2020, I was at 342 pounds, and now today, three years later, I’m at 160.4 pounds,” said Rothenhoefer.
Dr. Alexander Ramirez, a bariatric surgeon with Bayfront Health St. Petersburg Medical Group Weight Loss and Bariatric Surgery Institute, weighed in on medications like this.
“I would suggest if somebody starts thinking of taking this medication just to lose weight, they need to be aware that first, they are very expensive. Second, they need to see a doctor to make sure it’s going to be safe for them to use it, and third, they’re going to need to take it for the rest of their life in order to keep the weight down,” said Dr. Ramirez.
In May 2022, the FDA approved the medication to help adults with type 2 diabetes.
Last October, Eli Lilly said it got FDA Fast Track designation for the drug for the treatment of adults with obesity or overweight with weight-related comorbidities. The company said Fast Track designation is intended to bring promising medicines to patients sooner.
For Rothenhoefer, she said this has changed her life in ways she’s never thought of.
“If I can help even one person, then for me, this has just been bigger than myself,” said Rothenhoefer.
