Is anyone on GP-1 shots or pills, and if so, could one share how they are doing?
I am not, but did lose a substantial amount of weight. Typically, psoriatic arthritis responds very well to weight loss. Mine did not, of course, but if you need to lose some weight and have not had great success on your own, it may well be worthwhile
The research shows that PsA does not typically respond well to weight loss though. It actually makes little difference to your PsA disease activity, whether you’re too skinny, the perfect weight or over weight. So your experience of decent weight loss having no difference to your PsA is perfectly in line with the actual research. Obviously weight loss if someone is over weight helps simply loads of other things very positively indeed and many of our comorbities like higher BP, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes etc etc etc.
I’m actually having trouble finding research that does not support weight loss as part of disease management when somebody with PsA is obese. Would you mind sending me one or two articles?
has anyone tried the shots though to see how your body reacts in general. I don’t want to do something if they are known to put a person in a flare for any part of PsA
Right I belong to a group in the UK of over 8,000 PsA sufferers who live in the UK. It’s a group to help people navigate UK only issues so essentially about the NHS, the NICE protocols on PsA treatment, OT support etc etc. There is actual research that we can have difficulty in losing weight due to the general metabolic issues of what gross inflammation does to the body, which incidentally hits a proportion of IBD sufferers too of which I’m also one. It was quite nice to find out I’m certainly not alone in being an obese Crohn’s patient too. So there is a cohort of IBD sufferers just like me and who would have ever thought that either. And we lose weight more easily when the med (whichever one we are prescribed) starts actually working for us.
As in all medical scenarios and especially if the patient is a women, there is much gas lighting and much is blamed on weight, hormones, all the way up to ‘you obviously have a mental ill health issue’ which are causing your issues rather than the physician believing a diagnosis of PsA might be worth exploring. And lots is blamed on fibromyalgia (a condition in its own right which is different to PsA) or everything is ‘just’ OA caused. Both of those meaning no further PsA based intervention is offered. Incidentally it is common for male patients to be just labelled ‘hypercondriacs’ instead. For both sexes the labels are of course being of the ‘hysterical’ personality type as the reason you are seeking medical advice.
So I asked last night do we have actual research? Because we talk together often of people’s difficulty to lose weight since every medical doctor the world over tells anyone who has a couple of pounds to lose to ‘lose weight’ and that’s irrespective of which medical conditions they may have too. So the response was this and responses are still coming in too.
‘I would like to say that I’ve gone from 81kg to 60kg this past year and it’s made no difference to the pain I feel in a flare.’
‘I’ve lost 6 stone and has made zero difference to my pain.’
‘I’ve spent all my life trying to lose weight. I’ve been both an ok weight and overweight its made no difference. I now have hypothyroidism, T2 diabetes. High blood pressure, Fibromyalgia and PsA. Its a never ending fight for the good days.’
‘When I just had Ehlers Danlos, losing 10kg did help my joints. However, I’ve now gained fibromyalgia (suspect I had this from teens) and psoriatic arthritis. I’ve lost around 6kg and the loss made not a jot of difference when I was in a flare and medication failure. I went from being fully able to pretty disabled.’
‘I had to have an MRI for avascular necrosis of my shoulder. I apologised to the radiologist for my weight and he said, "that is a non load bearing joint, weight doesn’t have anything to do with it! We feel guilty whatever.’
‘I’ve halved my body weight in the past 20 months but don’t feel like it’s made any impact to be honest, the only thing that does is my methotrexate and anti inflammatories.’
‘I’ve lost 3 stone and can feel the difference in my knee probably just from carrying less weight (and only 5ft 2) but other than that I don’t notice a massive difference and still get severe pain in SI joints which makes it difficult to stand too long.’
‘It’s a subject I’ve talked with my rheumy with many times. As you know my disease started when I was so young. [patient was 18 months old] I was never an overweight child - not even on solids when my symptoms started - yet PsA destroyed most of my body by the age of 7. That [rheumy] says is evidence enough weight pays little bearing on disease severity. My skinniest time as an adult I was in the most severe flare up of my life. I was 2-3 stones lighter than today yet it made no difference to my PsA. My disease continued to flare (6 years long ).Our disease pathway isn’t like OA - where weight does degrade joints faster - our inflammatory process happens regardless of weight. OA degrades joints with wear and tear, being overweight increases that process. For PsA it’s inflammation that degrades bone, the disease process itself does that. The flip side it is known that PsA patients struggle with weight loss (which you know about). There was an argument years ago that for any type of arthritis not being overweight helped and reduced disease severity. But it was debunked for autoimmune inflammatory disease. Too many factors to consider - such as age, hormones, how long it took to start treatment, even climate and so on. Rheumatologists will always say healthy weight to height would be best. [Rheumy] certainly doesn’t put pressure on me to lose weight as she knows just how hard that is with PsA (and its effect on our metabolism). She doesn’t agree with BMI targets either as often they are unrealistic and unhealthy (can encourage eating disorders).’
‘I am a size 8 and I am always in pain with my psoriatic arthritis.’
‘I’ve lost 5 stone and not made one bit of difference either. Just my own evidence.’
‘I’d guess not….ive had a labral tear in my hip on & off for over a decade and I was over 20st (a chunky gym bunny) and a size 20 at the time. I didn’t know that it and other pains were PSA. I’ve been 10st lighter for 9 years and yet my worst flare occurred at a size 10.’
‘Like everyone else I’ve lost weight and the PSA doesn’t really get better. I do maybe go longer between flares but when it flares it is still killer.’
‘My symptoms started in childhood at around 10 years old. I left school at 15 and was 6.5 stone. At 18 I got to the point of not being able weight bare i was 8 stone.’
‘My first flare happened when I was actively losing weight and exercising, I had dropped three stone and was fighting fit, all until I flared and basically couldn’t walk first thing in the mornings!’
‘Since I’ve been diagnosed with PsA approx 20 years ago, although I’ve had psoriasis since 14 and joint issues from around the same time. I’ve been anywhere between 11-18st. No matter how heavy/light I’ve been I’ve suffered flares on various levels.’
‘I too have lost weight recently, 2.5 stone since 20/10/25. My hand has been forced after my blocked bowel surgery it appears the surgeon just glued me internally and my insides are now protruding in a surgical hernia as they call it. Whilst they’re happy to do the surgery I was told to come back when I’ve lost 50lbs! The loss of weight so far has made me feel better in myself but not my condition in fact the pain is worse.’
So in my comment to you about research was this ‘debunking of weight issues for autoimmune inflammatory disease’. I actually don’t know which research it was but it’s certainly there, my guess is that it was in the 1980’s or 1990’s. There is research showing a metabolic syndrome with autoimmune inflammatory diseases which makes losing weight harder - Arvind Kaul from the Royal Free in London.
And as you can see from an anecdotal point of view above, less weight helps when it’s a weight bearing joint to a degree but it doesn’t help much from a disease activity point of view. So PsA (as in disease activity issues) typically doesn’t seem to respond well at all. It important to know whether the research you were mentioning focused on joint destruction or disease activity. Both are independent of one another. To date and aged 64 (so getting to the OA typical age too) I have suffered no joint destruction at all despite having PsA for 10 years now but I sure do suffer significant pain and disabling incapacity from PsA at times, my present flare pretty much ongoing since August 2024 with a short break in April 2025 when Tremfya decided to work for a couple of weeks. Right now my right leg resembles a tree trunk with inflammation so it’s difficult to move it cogently to include sit down or get up up from sitting and my left leg has hellish tendon inflammation which can make me cry, it’s so painful. Both SI joints are horribly inflammed too. And a few ribs. My collar bone on my left hand side is twice the size of the other one. My left upper jaw joint is grumbling. And my right wrist is swollen and painful and I can’t use my right thumb today. Next dose of Skyrizi being the second loading dose is on Monday and I might even take it early at this rate! Some of this has to calm down soon. I lost a lot of weight when Cosentyx worked so well for me but that was because I was more enabled in every way possible.
On our news in UK yesterday there was a discussion that many patients using these weight loss injections were ending up having to have their gall bladder removed. Apparently it is listed as a known side effect. But varying hospital trusts were talking about the increase in the number of gall bladder removal surgeries. But any diabetic patient (mostly Type 1 too) who also has PsA invariably tends to be prescribed these drugs quite happily. As of course the weight loss meds were first used to treat diabetes and then they found out about the weight loss benefits.
I lost 10kg last year and I feel pleased with my appearance but it has made absolutely no difference to my poorly controlled PSA. I think only the ‘right’ medication could do that. And I’m vegan too
Feel quite happy at the moment for having finally been able to lose 27 kilos had picked up after a year or two of cortisone in 2022 due to COVID and pleurisy. and pneumonia serious health troubles. As after my cancer treatment in 2004, every time extensive cortisone use results in 20kg weight increase and not being able to lose It. As in 2004, started again taking Metformin, which allowed my metabolism tò accept diet restrictions and fasting and permitted weight loss. Currently also methotrexate shots weekly and monthly Cosentix shot, Italian health care provides this medication free of change. In addition it Is over five years am on carnivore diet, which together with fasting serms tò have a strong effect in lowering inflammation . Weighing 165 Pounds at 5ft 10 seems greatly beneficial for stress on my bones and joints, must say. All the best to you all,