Brad Roberts was so thrilled about his incredible Ozempic-fueled weight loss that he opted to appear in a commercial for the fat jabs.
Within a month of starting treatment Roberts, 44, shed 24lbs. By the half-year mark he had lost almost half his body weight, dropping from 300lbs to 157lbs.
Then the South Carolinian landed a role in a commercial advertising the drugs for his employer at the time, the telehealth giant LifeMD.
In the ad he explained how his father’s death had led him to ‘fill the void with food.’ Modeling a new svelte look, he told viewers: ‘I had made up my mind, I was done embarrassing myself. For the first time in five years, I feel confident, I feel the difference. Making a change is possible, it can happen.’
What he didn’t realize was that his rapid weight loss was silently causing devastating health effects.
The father-of-four now claims in a lawsuit against the doctor who treated him, that he has so much pain in his joints, muscles and stomach after taking Ozempic that he spends up to 18 hours a day in bed.
The fatty tissue in his ears have also deteriorated at such a rate that he is plagued by ‘severe equilibrium and imbalance issues, making it hard for him to stand and walk, especially up and down steps’.
Multiple affidavits in connection with the lawsuit claim that he can also no longer communicate, he suffers from memory loss, and experiences quadruple vision at times. Weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy have been linked to a rare eye condition that can cause vision loss.
Roberts and his wife Stacey are suing Dr Tony Puopolo, who prescribed him the weight loss drugs via LifeMD, for medical malpractice.
After being resigned to being obese, Brad Roberts couldn’t believe it when he lost 24lbs in a month on weight loss drugs. However, in a shocking turn of events, the 44-year-old father-of-four and his wife Stacey are suing the doctor who prescribed him the weight loss drugs
The family, who are seeking damages of $35.8 million, claim in court records that during November 2022 and 2023 the doctor over-prescribed a combination of ‘overlapping’, and sometimes unapproved, drugs to speed up his weight loss.
At one point the complaint reveals that Roberts, a former high-flying chief operating officer, was losing up to 3.5lbs a week, which exceeds the recommended weight loss rates of around 1 to 2lbs.
Dr Brent Wilkerson, who has treated Roberts since 2023 for his hearing issues, adds in the suit that because the fat surrounding his ear tubes shrank so fast, he is no longer able to hear property and ‘everything sounds muffled as if he were underwater, all while constantly experiencing tinnitus (ringing in the ears)’.
In his assessment of Roberts’ condition, he continues in court documents: ‘Loud noises make the tinnitus worse, causing severe piercing pain, pressure and migraine headaches. He wears wool caps over his ears in an attempt to muffle loud sounds.’
Sudden and rapid weight-loss can cause the fatty tissue surrounding the Eustachian tubes, which connect your ears to the back of your throat, to shrink.
This can cause the tubes to stay open when they should be shut, and ultimately result in hearing issues that are rarely but increasingly being reported by those on Ozempic.
Roberts has undergone at least six surgeries to try and remedy his hearing problems but he says with no success.
In another one of the court documents obtained by the Daily Mail, Dr Yadira Lockard, a psychologist who has served as Roberts’ therapist since January 2015, describes his deterioration after he was allegedly ‘dangerously’ overmedicated with weight loss drugs.
Off the back of his transformation Roberts landed a role in a commercial advertising the drugs for his employer at the time, the telehealth giant LifeMD
Roberts and his wife Stacey are suing Dr Tony Puopolo, who prescribed him the weight loss drugs via LifeMD, for medical malpractice
She states: ‘Roberts does not have the mental capacity to make life decision of any particular consequence to himself or on behalf of his family.’
Dr Lockard says in the suit she noticed a rapid decline with Roberts around December 2023.
Prior to that, she says that she treated him regularly for mental health matters and ‘issues in the ordinary course including generalized anxiety’ and nothing led her to question his ‘capacity to make financial or personal decisions’.
‘He was an active and involved father and husband,’ she adds.
However, around December 2023, a year into his weight loss, Dr Lockard claims in the suit she started noticing a concerning change in Roberts’ behavior.
She recalls: ‘Roberts began to complain to me that his medical ailments had impacted his ability to function normally and had rendered it impossible for him to follow and / or understand his email correspondence, transmit email correspondence, read and understand correspondence that he received and focus and / or concentrate on any communication (whether oral or written).’
Roberts allegedly complained, according to the suit, that he could not bank, drive more than a few minutes at a time or engage in intimate acts with his wife.
New York-based Dr Robert Cooper, who has specialized in diabetes for more than 25 years, warns that the overuse of GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic can have devastating consequences.
In one of the affidavits, he notes: ‘If GLP-1s are sufficiently overprescribed, whether it is in the same medication or the same class of medication, it will result in adverse effects including gastrointestinal disturbances, pancreatitis, biliary pathology, hypoglycemia, and even death.’
As noted by Dr Wilkerson, Roberts’ therapist Dr Lockard says in her statement that she also found Roberts ‘complained (and continues to complain) of excruciating pain in both ears’.
Touching on some of the other complaints he relayed to her during therapy sessions, Dr Lockard reveals: ‘His teeth are constantly in pain and feel soft.
At one point he said he was losing up to 3.5lbs a week on weight loss drugs, which exceeds the recommended weight loss of around 1 to 2lbs
‘The roof of his mouth is almost constantly burning, but at other times his whole mouth feels ice cold. His tongue feels swollen and he cannot eat anything that is firm. He relies on soft foods and protein shakes.’
Although there is not much research around the effect of weight loss medications on oral health Dr Fatima Khan, a dentist and co-founder of Riven Oral Care in Maryland, says that some of the things she has heard of include acidic tastes in the mouth, enamel erosion, sensitive teeth and tooth decay.
This is because some weight loss drugs, particularly GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy, can cause acid reflux or heartburn as a side effect.
Along with his physical health being impacted, Dr Lockard says in the suit that Roberts is also suffering from neurocognitive deficits with ‘holes in his memory that never previously existed’ and ‘limited short-term memories’.
Other symptoms Dr Lockard says she has observed include tremors, slurred speech, brain fog, and dizziness.
She concludes in one of the court documents: ‘Regrettably, none of the ailments described have abated and, in my professional opinion, have grown worse and appear unlikely to abate in the future.’
Roberts alleges in the suit that his weight loss medications were prescribed after a video consultation with Dr Puopolo via LifeMD and no follow-up appointments were scheduled.
He also claims he was not warned about the potential side effects or of other treatments available.
New York-based Dr Robert Cooper, who has specialized in diabetes for more than 25 years, says in the suit that from the evidence he has seen, that he believes Dr Puopolo was negligent.
He concludes: ‘If GLP-1s are sufficiently overprescribed, whether it is in the same medication or the same class of medication, it will result in adverse effects including gastrointestinal disturbances, pancreatitis, biliary pathology, hypoglycemia, and even death.’
No trial date has been set to resolve the case. In response to the allegations against Dr Puopolo, who was working through the platform LifeMD at the time, a spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘As we have explained in our court filings, the allegations in the case are meritless.
‘We have already made a motion to the court to have the case dismissed as a matter of law, and we look forward to the court’s decision on that motion.’
Ozempic was originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes by lowering blood sugar levels. Diabetes can be genetic – known as type 1 diabetes, but around three quarters of the 38.4 million cases in the US are type 2 and caused by poor diet and lifestyle.
After studies revealed that the drug, which falls into the category of glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist (GLP-1s) injections, was a highly effective appetite-suppressant, the weekly injections were repurposed to treat weight-loss.
In 2018, 92 percent of new Ozempic users had been diagnosed with diabetes. By 2021, this had fallen to 77 percent and continues to decline.
Some experts said there is no solid evidence to support Ozempic-induced tinnitus or hearing loss and claim the incidents are very rare
Research suggests patients taking Ozempic, which contains an active ingredient called semaglutide, can lose up to 15 per cent of their body weight within a year.
Those taking another GLP-1 drug called Mounjaro lose as much as a fifth of their body weight over the same time period.
Around a fifth of people who take weight-loss injections suffer from nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. For most, these issues fade after several weeks.
Of greater concern are reports of pancreatitis. This causes inflammation of the pancreas, an organ in the abdomen which produces digestive hormones. In some cases, pancreatitis can be life-threatening and trigger organ failure.
Meanwhile, a study carried out by researchers at Harvard University last year concluded that taking Ozempic doubles the risk of a rare condition called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION.
This medical emergency occurs when blood flow to the nerves of the eye becomes blocked, causing vision loss. But despite the increased risk, the condition is still thought to only occur in one in every 4,000 patients.
There are not any official warnings about hearing problems associated with Ozempic.
But like Robers, patients in online support groups are increasingly raising the alarm.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Novo Nordisk (the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy) and Eli Lilly and Company (the maker of Mounjaro and Zepbound) for comment on Roberts’ case.
