A Week of Jabs | Starting Ozempic and a Discussion with a Rusty Nail

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]I bet you're wondering who lives in this beautiful old house in the Scottish Highlands. I do. Hi, I'm Lauri, a menopausal 40somey old woman riddled with ADHD and autism. And if you're new here, we're right in the middle of building a cottage garden. I've made a lot of progress in the last 2 weeks and I've got a large portion of it done. But today, we are working on this overgrown mess of weeds and grass. The first order of business is to do something with this lynchet and try to turn it into something pretty.

[00:01:05]So, I need to finish building the rock wall. I'm going to work on that today.

[00:01:10]But the rock pile this time of morning is covered in midgetes. So, I found some rocks on the other side of the walled garden.

[00:01:18]But they're kind of hidden. But we'll go get those first.

[00:01:54]I'm going to need you to remember this shot of my backside. It's important.

[00:02:21]Right. So, in getting those rocks, I just got scraped by a rusty nail. So, I've had to call the GP and see if I need a tetanus shot.

[00:02:31]All in all, I should have just braved the midgetes.

[00:02:46]So, I do need a tetanis shot and I'm waiting for the GP to call me back cuz they don't have any of the practice. So, I don't know if I'm going to have to drive 45 minutes to get one. So, I can't film on the tripod right now because I'm waiting for the GP to call me back.

[00:03:01]>> Well, with all the nervous energy of the impending doom of having to get a tetanis shot, I actually managed to get a lot done.

[00:03:36]So, I was just going to stay inside today because well, I have to get my tetanus booster at 1:30 today.

[00:03:45]But it's not a bad thing because I have not got a tetanus booster. I mean, honestly, I was probably a child and you're supposed to get one every 10 years. So, all in all, probably a good thing. But whenever I have anything in the middle of the day, I usually have to stay dressed and have to stay in that mindset. But you know what? I got this huge box delivery um late yesterday afternoon and it rained this morning.

[00:04:10]So, it's actually good time to transplant because the soil's wet. So, despite the fact that I will need another shower before I go and get my tetanis shot, I'm going to play in the garden.

[00:04:37]So today I'm working on the area that is just on the other side of the rock wall I built yesterday. And while that plant order looked like a lot of plants, it won't even touch the sides of this. So I'm going to transplant some a stillby.

[00:04:51]I have tons of this in the walled garden and I will not get to the walled garden for at least two years. So, anything is game. Just when I decide to be all brave and do something today productive, it starts pouring down rain.

[00:05:41]Well, I guess sometimes it's good to brave the rain. Look at that.

[00:05:47]I'm in the way.

[00:05:58]So, this little embankment here has always been a problem since we kind of dug out the pond last year. We hit bedrock really quickly, like right here on the side of the pond, and so it's fairly shallow. So, there's also drainage coming in off the mountain, so we couldn't do a larger gradient that way. I'm going to have to talk quick cuz the midgetes have found me. Anyway, I transplanted a lot of the still beef from the other side of the garden, like tons of it. I have tons of it and it's free. And they love the boggy soil. I'm also planting in some ferns. And then I've got this auga, which loves moist soil. And it's a little bit darker than the rest of the cottage garden. It's a little bit It's a little bit darker than the rest of the cottage garden planting, but it's moving in towards the woodland garden. And I kind of like that cuz I have a lot of moss and hellaors on this side. I'm also going to intersperse some ivy so that in the winter there's still some moss and ivy and it gives it a bit of interest instead of it just being a soggy black mess.

[00:07:19]Well, that's me properly rained out.

[00:07:21]Time to get ready to go get my tetanus shot. Right. So, I've just had my injection. I can't believe this. I'm like 43 years old. We've just left the the I've just left the doctor's office, but I'm I'm just parked up the road. I'm just going to wait a few minutes because I'm a little bit nervous. I waited a few minutes at the doctor's office, but I think if there's going to be any allergic reaction, it would have already happened by now. But I just get so scared and nervous about these things.

[00:07:56]And can you tell how red my face is?

[00:07:58]That's just pure anxiety.

[00:08:01]I mean, I even called my mom on the way.

[00:08:06]I like my mom's like such a superstar.

[00:08:08]Like she drove herself to the hospital to get her heart restarted. And uh I can't even go get I can't even go and get a tetanus jab.

[00:08:20]Anyway, I think this is just me trying to normalize not being normal.

[00:08:27]But while I'm sitting here waiting, I have to show you where I'm waiting and why even if something happens, it's not a bad way to go. I mean, if you're going to have a panic attack, do it in front of a beautiful Scottish landscape with an old castle. I mean, that's obviously the way to do it, right?

[00:08:48]But I took care of myself and I spent the rest of the day making some art and watching Should I Marry a Murderer on Netflix? And despite the content on the television, actually sitting down and doing some art was exactly what I needed.

[00:10:33]Now, a little disclaimer for the kitchen segment of the video. I'm going to be talking about weight loss. And if that is in any way triggering for you for any reason, please feel free to skip this part of the video. I'm going to be discussing GLP1s or in layman's terms ompic. I'm going to talk to you about why I've decided to go on it. I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the research I did beforehand because as you saw earlier in the video, I am terrified of putting anything foreign into my body. So, this is something I have been researching and grappling with since I was very ill back in January.

[00:11:13]And for those of you who love the kitchen segment and are very upset that it's going to be all about a weight loss talk, I am actually making kimchi, which I made this recipe back in February. So, if you want to see me make kimchi, you can go check out that video. Also, I'll put the recipe in the comments. So, I've tried to make everybody happy.

[00:11:37]I want to preface this that this is completely personal. It's not medical advice in any way.

[00:11:43]But I am an autistic woman who researches things probably to the point of her detriment. So I'll share that with you. GLP1s that stands for glucagon like peptide and your body naturally releases it after you eat. So despite it becoming very popular now, it has been studied since the 1980s and the 1990s. And the first time it went to market was 2005 when it was approved by the FDA. So we're talking not just a fad.

[00:12:20]40 years of research has gone into this in layman's terms. When you hear that it reduces the food noise, what does that mean? When you're hungry and depending on how your body works, your blood sugar goes a little bit crazy, right?

[00:12:38]This helps regulate that so you don't get that I must eat now which in turn gives you the chance to eat better and think better. It also slows digestion which makes you feel full longer. There are certain risk factors associated with GLP1s.

[00:12:59]The primary being gallbladder stones and the pancreas because that's where your insulin and glucagon is made and manufactured in the body. I had a very terrifying January and February where I was struggling to breathe. I'm overweight and that adds to asthma and lung function difficulties. I also have sleep apneoa which causes of course heart palpitations and all sorts of knock-on effects throughout your body and GLP1s have been used to treat pre-diabetic people which my father had diabetes and also people with sleep apnnea.

[00:13:42]So I've spent several months going back and forth.

[00:13:48]For me, I think the real kicker was I did not want to spend another winter like I had last year. But my mother has been on the GLP1s since October of last year. She hasn't lost like a tremendous amount of weight.

[00:14:07]She's only lost about 20 pounds, which losing it slowly is the way. You shouldn't just not eat. but she was able last month to get off the blood pressure medication she'd been on since she was 45 and she's in her 70s and she's been taken off four of her seven heart medications.

[00:14:27]She says she's happier. She has less food noise, but also mama, I love you if you're watching it. She has the diet of a 16-year-old.

[00:14:36]You know, she loves to sip on a soda all day long. She doesn't drink a lot, but she'll drink a big one all day long and then she'll grab a handful of chocolate.

[00:14:46]Now, she doesn't eat much, but what she does eat is what a 16-year-old would eat. And this has really helped her change her eating habits. Now, I'm in the unique position where I'm an American and my mother's in the States and I live in the UK. So, I can tell you about how I went about getting it here.

[00:15:06]Of course, I'm going to preface this by recognizing that it is not accessible and affordable to everyone. In the UK, there are medical websites that you can go to.

[00:15:21]You don't necessarily need a prescription. What you do is you fill out a questionnaire, a health questionnaire to make sure that this drug is right for you. You then send a picture of yourself and a picture of some sort of photo ID so that they can verify the person taking the medication and ordering it is the same person. They then send a letter of notice to your GP practice so that in case there are any health ramifications, your GP is aware that you are taking a GLP1. In fact, when I went and got my injection, the nurse said to me, "Oh, I see you're on Mangaro." In the States, my mom has to get a prescription.

[00:16:00]She gets it through her nurse practitioner and it is still very punchy. I believe there may be other ways to order it, but those are the two that I know of.

[00:16:11]I have to admit I have gone from a person who didn't even take paracetamol when she had a headache to now being on HRT hormone therapy, taking a daily antihistamine, having an inhaler, and now being on a weight loss drug. I have to say I felt better than I have in years. I did used to think that being on drugs was a weakness.

[00:16:38]But when you're lying in bed fighting for breath and wondering what your life has become, it makes you wake up very quickly. Might have gone a little heavy-handed. Okay, we're going to weigh this and then we're going to multiply it by 0.02 and that's how much salt we're going to use.

[00:17:06]Okay, that is 652 g. So, we're going to need about 13 13 g of salt.

[00:17:26]We're going to massage it. We're going to get really in there and kind of break it up so that everything gets salted.

[00:17:33]So, now that I've done this, I'm going to cover it and let it sit for an hour or so. And we'll continue our chat. Now, I thought about talking about this in a separate video, but I felt that that would bring in a lot of people who aren't here on the channel for, you know, midlife neurode divergent me and more to weigh in about weight loss, which can be quite controversial.

[00:17:57]And to that, if you ask me any questions, I will try to answer them the best I can. But please keep in mind that other people reading the comments may be struggling with body image, disordered eating. And so if this is not your thing, I really pride myself on having a very safe place for everyone. So just let's leave any kind of negative comments to yourself on this one, okay? Because there may be somebody vulnerable watching. Yeah.

[00:18:26]To that, I'm in about a week and a half.

[00:18:30]My first injection was fine. I've reread the instructions a million times. I did bruise. I did it on my thigh. The bruise didn't hurt, but I was aware of the bruising because I'm, you know, anxiety.

[00:18:45]Anyway, I took it about 6:00 p.m. and I did have a little trouble sleeping that night. I talked to my mom and she said that she had that as well. She takes hers a little bit earlier in the day because the first day, I'm not going to lie, you feel almost euphoric, like very full of energy and you're not thinking about food. Um, and I think that's a little psychosmatic because when you have spent a lifetime thinking about food and having a yo-yo weight problem, when that worry is gone and you feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's amazing. So this week I was supposed to take the GLP-1 injection on the day I got my tetanus shot and I knew that I would be crazy nervous about this and I did not want anything else in my body. I wanted to see how I was reacting to the tetanus shot. So my first week I actually went 8 days on the Tuesday when I was supposed to take it. I did feel hungrier. Not like a significant like I need to like that old I need to eat now, but I did notice that it was probably starting to wne. So I took it on Wednesday. I took it earlier in the morning and I had a ton of energy all day, but I did have to stop and go lorry. You need to drink. So it's very important you keep yourself hydrated, you keep your electrolytes balanced, and you eat well. You need lots of protein because in something that slows your digestion, the protein is going to give you energy for longer.

[00:20:27]Okay, it's been sitting for about 45 minutes. I'm going to cut up some onions and garlic to put in. And then we're going to mix some gang paste as well and massage it. We are going to need to drain that. Get some of the salt off of that just so it's edible.

[00:20:44]All right, this has been rinsed and I'm adding the onions and the garlic. And then I'm going to add about a tablespoon of the galang paste.

[00:21:08]So, we're going to jar this up.

[00:21:17]Look at all that water already being released.

[00:21:21]Because it's warmer outside now.

[00:21:25]This should only take a couple of days.

[00:21:28]Actually, so you want everything submerged under the liquid.

[00:21:37]Just going to clean it up a bit. So, that is the kimchi all sorted. Now, because this video has had a lot of my talking head, I'm not going to give you a fiveminute update on everything. I'll do that on the next video. Like I said, any questions you might have, I'm more than happy to try and answer them and share my experience. I think it's very important for a few reasons. I think middle-aged women isn't talked about enough. It's a kind of a taboo subject and it shouldn't be because we are 51% of the population.

[00:22:08]I also think when it comes to weight loss and neurode divergence, there's a higher coorbidity of disordered eating in autistic and ADHD females. And that is the truth. So, if this is something you've been exploring and I can help in any way, I'm happy to do that. But for now, I'm going to take Duke outside and I'll show you where I finished in the garden for this week. And I'll see you again next time.