Rhianna Benson
A British politician has lifted the lid on the 'nightmare' side effects she endured earlier this year, after kicking off her journey with Mounjaro.
Nadine Dorries - a member of the Conservative party, best known for having served as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport under Boris Johnson - documented her own account of the weight loss injectables.
In a first-person story for The Mail, she revealed she'd begun taking the appetite-suppressing medication the summer prior.
Several months after she started taking the drug, however, the 68-year-old suddenly began experiencing a side effect that gave her confidence a brutal beating.
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"I was absent-mindedly running my hand through my hair as I watched TV one evening in January, when an entire clump came away from the scalp in my fingers," she wrote.
"I almost screamed in shock and leapt from my chair to check my reflection in the mirror above the fireplace.
She continued: "When I gently tugged again at my hair to see if I had a serious problem, I detached another clump.
"For some reason I continued frantically running my fingers though my hair until I reached a point where all that was coming away was a dozen strands or so in each hand."
Dorries isn't the first Mounjaro user to complain about this specific side effect, with a horde of Reddit users recently documenting similar experiences.
Attempting to offer an explanation for the hair loss, GP and senior clinical advisor Dr Donald Grant explained to Somerset Live last week that newbies to the drug often suffer nutritional deficiencies in the early months.
"As the treatment activates the body’s GLP-1 receptors, making us feel full, it can often lead to poor eating habits, where an individual is not obtaining the nutrients required to uphold a healthy lifestyle," he said.
This feeling of fullness which, as the medic explained, is caused by the activation of the GLP-1 and GIP receptors in the body, can lead users to make poor decisions on their food intake, and leave them inadvertently not consuming enough protein, biotin and zinc.
These nutrients are famously linked to healthy hair.
Recounting her experience, right-leaning politician Dorries claimed she endured similar hair loss years earlier, when she began taking HRT as a result of the menopause.
On Mounjaro, however, she said the amount of hair she was losing became more extreme - despite the former nurse claiming she intently researched the possible side effects of the medication.
"The online information also warned of the possibility of heartburn, and to expect bouts of diarrhoea – or its complete opposite, constipation," she wrote this week.
"I experienced every one of these symptoms full on, including being so fatigued at one point that I fainted for the first time in my life – for months, the worst side-effect of me taking Mounjaro was the injured knee I sustained when I fell to the ground.
"What I didn’t read about anywhere – and what didn’t appear to have been known at the time – was the distressing possibility of hair loss."
After raising the issue with her doctor, Dorries claims she was advised to 'take a course of vitamins designed specifically for menopausal women', as well as to 'massage rosemary oil into the scalp every few days'.
"I also researched the best shampoos and treatments to combat hair loss and came across Philip Kingsley’s Density range of hair treatments," she continued.
The politician also began taking a collagen supplement daily and upped her protein intake - both of which she claims helped hugely with her hair regrowth.
"My hair has grown back and, it’s only now that I have come out the other side that I feel able to discuss my hair loss and even write about it," she confessed.
"And I am not alone. Hair loss as a very real side-effect of weight loss has become an increasingly ubiquitous talking point on social media and in online chat rooms.
"But the manufacturers of weight-loss drugs and the NHS website are still silent on the problem."
Approached by Tyla for comment on the hair loss side effect after a number of other users issued the same complaint, pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly responded: "Patient safety is Lilly’s top priority.
"We take any reports regarding patient safety extremely seriously and actively monitor, evaluate, and report safety information for all our medicines.
"The Mounjaro (tirzepatide) Patient Information Leaflet warns that hair loss is a common side effect in patients treated with Mounjaro for weight management. We encourage patients to consult their doctor or other healthcare professional regarding any side effects they may be experiencing and to ensure that they are getting genuine Lilly medicine."