Joie Armstrong asked her doctor about taking a GLP-1 medication to help her lose weight six times before she got a prescription, and then was denied coverage by her insurance company. Adrian, a systems engineer, had a choice between paying out of pocket for a GLP-1 medication or feeding his family. Chanel Robinson spent months fighting with her insurance company via certified snail mail over coverage for the medication. Gabriela Pena wanted to take a name-brand GLP-1, but high costs drove her to get her medication from an online telehealth provider and compounding pharmacy that seemed, at first, shady to her. Thousands of people have signed up for a secret text chain so they can learn how to source and test the ingredients to mix up their own weight loss medications.
Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound, Mounjaro: These medications have been a lifeline for millions of people, well beyond weight loss. But the majority who get prescriptions — 62% in 2024, according to IQVIA data analytics — are denied insurance coverage, the Washington Post reported. As a reporter, I’ve spoken to dozens of people who have taken GLP-1 medications, and many have tried just about every diet, exercise program, supplement and other drugs to lose weight and improve their health. Some felt that if something didn’t change, they wouldn’t live. And if GLP-1s could be that change, many people are willing to go to great lengths to get them. Here’s what three people have gone through to gain access to these weight loss drugs, and how the medications have helped them.
‘I didn’t really have any choice: It was that or my symptoms coming back’
A GLP-1 medication gave 23-year-old Gabriela Pena something she’d seldom had since she was 13: her period. When she raised the issue of her missing periods with a gynecologist at age 18, her concerns were dismissed. Pena finally got a diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) at age 21. Working with an endocrinologist for the first time, she decided that birth control — the typical first-line treatment for PCOS — was not for her, and tried to treat her condition with diet, exercise, supplements and progesterone pills to try to force her period to come. After six months, Pena and her doctor agreed, it wasn’t working. That’s when the endocrinologist suggested a GLP-1 medication, since the class of drugs had shown promise for treating PCOS, especially the insulin resistance that often comes with the condition and can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Gabriela Pena thought an online provider was a “sketchy” source of compounded tirzepatide at first but ultimately decided it was her best, most affordable option. (Courtesy of Gabriela Pena)
Pena’s endocrinologist put in requests for authorization of every name-brand GLP-1 medication with her insurance company, but the insurer denied her coverage for every last one. So, her endocrinologist suggested Pena try getting her medication from a local compounding pharmacy, which charged $250 per month’s supply of the starting 2.5 milligram dose of tirzepatide (about $100 cheaper than LillyDirect’s Zepbound offering). That, Pena decided, was doable. She started feeling better, having periods and losing weight. But once it was time to increase her dosage to 7.5 milligrams, Pena was floored by the cost: $700 a month. If she had to go up to the highest dose, that price would soar to more than $1,000. “I started kind of freaking out,” Pena says. “Just in the time I’d been on the medication, I noticed a difference; I had felt very puffy and inflamed from that weight on me from PCOS, and I noticed I was feeling better.” She dreaded losing access to the one thing that had helped. So, Pena got to work, researching alternative sources for the medication, eventually deciding to take a chance on an online platform that worked with compounded tirzepatide makers. “Now, there are lots of Fridays [ads] and the Hims & Hers Super Bowl commercial, but when I signed up, it wasn’t that common,” says Pena, who did not want to disclose the name of the company she gets tirzepatide from for privacy reasons. She pays a membership fee, but the price of her medication stays the same, no matter the dosage. “It was very scary, but I started seeing genuine reviews, and I didn’t really have any choice: It was that or my symptoms coming back and dealing with that all over again.”
Eight months later, she’s lost significant weight, is feeling better in general and “my cycles are regular, which is insane to me,” she says. Pena no longer sees her compounded medication as “sketchy,” and likes that she can customize her own doses at home, to slowly increase the amount she’s taking and stretch her supply. She tries not to worry about the threat that the Food and Drug Administration might crack down on compounders, but “if it gets taken away, it’s going to be tough,” says Pena.
‘Am I supposed to put food on my family’s table, or am I supposed to get weight loss medication?’
Adrian, a 30-year-old systems engineer from Utah who asked that we withhold his last name for privacy reasons, was 372 pounds and caught in a maddening medical system loop last year. He was preparing to undergo bariatric surgery, the most effective weight loss treatment his insurer, Kaiser Permanente, would cover. But he had to get down to 350 pounds in order to be approved for surgery, “and no amount of dieting and exercise would get me there,” he told Yahoo in a previous interview.
Meanwhile, Adrian’s wife was taking Ozempic and making great progress on her weight loss journey. At first his doctor wouldn’t prescribe it, even though his family’s insurance would cover GLP-1s. Once he moved to Utah, Adrian’s new doctor immediately prescribed him Mounjaro, only for the insurance company to deny his coverage. Adrian stocked up on three months of compounded tirzepatide, but he worried that the FDA would shut down his provider before he could afford to stockpile more medication.
Then, he learned about “gray,” a term used to describe research-grade chemicals. Soon, Adrian was mixing up his own tirzepatide at home, going to great lengths to thoroughly test the powdered form of the drug he ordered from China for heavy metals and other toxins. It’s not illegal to buy these chemicals, but by using them on himself, Adrian takes on potential serious risks, since they’re not intended for use in humans. But it’s well worth it to Adrian, who was down to 317 pounds as of May 2025. Adrian’s gray tirzepatide costs him about $18 a month, plus about $850 to test a year’s supply of the chemicals for all impurities. In total, it costs him less than $2,000 to make a year’s supply of tirzepatide — the equivalent of four months of Eli Lilly’s Zepbound at a dose of 5 milligrams or higher. Paying triple that simply isn’t an option for Adrian. “Am I supposed to put food on my family’s table, or am I supposed to get weight loss medication?” he asks.
Adrian knows that it’s extreme to make his own medication. And, if he could afford to, he’d rather take Zepbound. But the cost-benefit analysis is a no-brainer for him. For Adrian, “the risk of compounding your own medicine far outweighs the risk of dying of a heart attack when you’re in your 40s” due to unchecked obesity, he previously told Yahoo.
‘Losing access … was more stressful than figuring out how to pay for it’
When 29-year-old Chanel Robinson started taking Mounjaro two years ago, “I was just really unhappy with how I looked,” she tells Yahoo. “I was about 246 pounds, and I’m 5 feet tall, so that was not going well for me.” She also had high cholesterol, was prediabetic and had PCOS. After hearing about Ozempic, Robinson used Zocdoc to find a nearby nurse practitioner who prescribed GLP-1s. However, her appointment was during the height of shortages for Ozempic and Wegovy, so Robinson was prescribed a drug she’d never heard of: Mounjaro.
Chanel Robinson spent months fighting with her insurance company via snail mail before resorting to an online provider of compounded tirzepatide. (Courtesy of Chanel Robinson)
Her nurse practitioner happened to have a sample box of the medication on hand, so Robinson walked out with a free month’s supply of the medication, and no idea how much it cost. In that first month, she lost 12 pounds. But when Robinson filed with her insurer, UnitedHealthcare, she was denied coverage for the medication despite her multiple health conditions. With a coupon offered by LillyDirect at the time, she paid $500 a month out of pocket for her first 12 weeks of medication. “I didn’t have disposable income, so it was definitely a stretch,” says Robinson. Meanwhile, she fought back and forth with her insurance trying to get coverage, using ChatGPT to help her write the most “professional”-sounding letters possible. “They denied it, and then I had to submit an appeal. Then they denied the appeal, and the next step would have been a peer-to-peer review, but everything took 30 to 45 days via certified mail,” which she’d never used, says Robinson. “I was just frustrated and was like, ‘I don’t have time to be doing this, y’all.’”
Even though she was both annoyed and financially strained, there was no question for Robinson: “I didn’t even care about the cost because who loses 12 pounds in a month?” she says. But then, like Pena, she went to pick up her new, higher dose from a Kroger pharmacy and was told it would now cost her $1,200. “I left without the medication and got straight to work researching,” says Robinson. Within three days, she’d found a local company that provided compounded tirzepatide. It still wasn’t cheap, and the cost went up with the dose, “but the thought of losing access to the medication was more stressful than figuring out how to pay for it,” says Robinson. She’s since switched to an online provider and has now been on tirzepatide for about two years (with a brief stint on compounded semaglutide, because she was concerned about losing access to her preferred medication), losing nearly 100 pounds. Because her tirzepatide is customized with an additional ingredient, Robinson is hopeful she won’t lose access to it amid the FDA’s crackdown. But if she did, “I would probably get back into a fight with the insurance company to see what could be done and, if push came to shove, then, unfortunately, I would be paying out of pocket” for name-brand medication, says Robinson. “For me, not being on it is not an option.”
