Ozempic Side Effects Caused Gastritis, Gallbladder Injury and Uncontrollable Vomiting, Lawsuit Claims

A Texas woman says she had to have her gallbladder removed and suffered other severe gastrointestinal side effects from Ozempic, which she received as a prescription from her doctor to promote weight loss.

The complaint (PDF) was filed by Miquana Renteria in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on March 26, indicating that Novo Nordisk failed to provide adequate warnings about the serious nature of Ozempic side effects for users or the medical community.

Ozempic (semaglutide) was initially approved for the treatment of people with Type 2 diabetes, and it is part of a popular new class of medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs). However, amid aggressive advertisements that promoted the weight loss benefits, Ozempic has been increasingly prescribed as a diet drug in recent years, making it a blockbuster treatment that is now used by millions of Americans.

As a result of the popularity of Ozempic for weight loss, Novo Nordisk has introduced a higher dose version under the brand name Wegovy, which is specifically approved as a diet drug. However, it contains the same active ingredient.

Although advertisements promote the drug as safe and effective, with few serious health risks, Renteria and a growing number of other former users are now pursuing Ozempic lawsuits and Wegovy lawsuits against Novo Nordisk, each raising similar allegations that a large number of users are experiencing long-term side effects, including gallbladder injuries, intestinal blockages, stomach paralysis and other injuries.

Renteria indicates she began taking Ozempic for weight loss in 2022, after consulting with her doctor. However, within a short time, she began suffering from chest pain.

Symptoms worsened as time passed, ultimately leading to severe nausea and vomitting on Ozempic in August 2022. By October, the side effects included epigastric pain, which led to a diagnosis of gastritis, which involves inflammation in the stomach lining.

The Ozempic stomach side effects became so bad that Renteria was hospitalized with gastritis in November 2022, and was also diagnosed with a hiatal hernia and uncontrolled vomiting, which she attributes to the weight-loss drug. She also told doctors she was afraid to eat.

By April 2023, she was diagnosed with gallbladder inflammation, and had to have her gallbladder removed in May 2023, which is another Ozempic side effect that Renteria indicates Novo Nordisk knew or should have known about.

“The Novo Nordisk Defendants have repeatedly failed to warn about the known dangerous side effects of Ozempic and Wegovy. This includes malnutrition, cyclical vomiting, and gastroparesis, gastroenteritis, intestinal obstruction/blockage, ileus, esophageal and bowel injury, DVT and associated pulmonary embolism, gallbladder problems necessitating surgery, and intraoperative aspiration. All of these conditions can, and have, lead to hospitalization and/or death in patients across America,” Renteria’s lawsuit states. “Some doctors estimate that as many as 10% of patients discontinue use of these drugs due to the severity of side effects.”

Renteria indicates that doctors and users should have been warned to be on the look out for signs and symptoms that may be caused by Ozempic, presenting claims for negligence, failure to warn, design defect, negligent misrepresentation, Consumer Protection Act violations, and seeks both compensatory and punitive damages.

April 2024 Ozempic Gastroparesis Lawsuit Update

In February, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) issued a transfer order calling for all gastrointestinal injury lawsuits involving Ozempic or any other GLP-1 medications to be consolidated for coordinated pretrial proceedings under U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The litigation not only focuses on side effects of Ozempic, but also other medications from the same class, including Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound, Trulicity and others.

Given the widespread use of these medications in recent years for weight loss, it is widely expected that thousands of claims will be transferred to the Ozempic litigation as lawyer continue to review and file claims in the coming months, as some estimates indicate nearly 2% of the U.S. population has been prescribed one of the GLP-1 medications, either for diabetes treatment or weight loss.

To help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation, it is expected that Judge Pratter will establish a bellwether process to prepare a small group of Ozempic side effect lawsuits for early trial dates. However, if the parties are unable to negotiate settlements or another resolution for the litigation after the bellwether trials, the Court may later remand each case back to the U.S. District Court where it was originally filed for trial.