Mayim Bialik's GLP-1 Experience Left Her With ‘Uncontrollable’ GI Symptoms

• Actor Mayim Bialik has shared her “nightmare” experience that left her with weeks of side effects after one GLP-1 medication dose. 
• Bialik said her symptoms included severe diarrhea and full-body aches. 
• She revealed that she tried a GLP-1 after her doctor suggested it may help with her autoimmune disease symptoms.

Emmy Award-winning actor Mayim Bialik, of “Blossom” and “Big Bang Theory” fame, opened up about her experience with a GLP-1 medication. 

In an essay for The Free Press, Bialik wrote, “To say I had an adverse reaction would be somewhat of an understatement.” 

After one low dose injection of the GLP-1 medication, she said she began to experience gastrointestinal symptoms that left her unwell for weeks. 

When Bialik visited a gastroenterologist about her symptoms, she was told that dramatic side effects from GLP-1 drugs can be quite common. The doctor also informed Bialik that the other medications she was taking may have contributed to her symptoms. 

Here’s why Bialik turned to GLP-1s and why her autoimmune disease symptoms may have exacerbated her side effects.

Bialik’s GLP-1 experience was a ‘nightmare’ 

Bialik shared that she had gained around 20 pounds during early menopause.

However, that wasn’t why she started using a GLP-1 medication. She had been told that the medication may help ease some of the symptoms she had lived with most of her adult life. 

She was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition, when she was 23.

At 48, Bialik consulted with various specialists for other symptoms she was experiencing after perimenopause. Each physician gave her a separate autoimmune diagnosis, but none seemed 100% certain.

She decided to try a GLP-1, not for her postmenopause weight gain, but because three separate doctors suggested she try it to help with her autoimmune symptoms. There is evidence to show GLP-1s may help reduce inflammation. 

“There have been studies showing GLP-1 medications improving cardiovascular health, cognitive health, [and] kidney function, to name a few,” Mir Ali, MD, medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, told Healthline in a previous interview. 

However, after one dose of the GLP-1 medication, Bialik began to experience severe side effects. 

She wrote in her essay that she experienced “explosive, uncontrollable diarrhea. Sulfur burps so violent, they left me afraid to open my mouth in public. Sneezing attacks every time I tried to eat or drink—which apparently has a name: snatiation.” 

“Cramping. Bloating. Full-body aching, as though I had the flu,” she said. 

“And an inability to keep down even small sips of water without sprinting to the bathroom with yet more explosive diarrhea. More than three times, I didn’t make it.” 

Jeffrey Lee, MD, a double board certified plastic surgeon and founder of JL Plastic Surgery in Boston, MA, told Healthline in a previous interview that gastrointestinal side effects from GLP-1s are not unusual.

“The most common side effects I see in practice are gastrointestinal, things like nausea, bloating, or constipation,” Lee said.

Bialik said that although her GLP-1 experience was a “nightmare,” it shouldn’t overshadow the widespread success that millions of people have had with this class of drugs.

“GLP-1s have helped people in serious need,” Bialik said. “Of that I am certain. But nobody talks much about what happens when it goes wrong.”