A diabetic sixty -year -old who has lost an eye for an eye since he took Ozempic launching a warning against rare and unknown side effects of the popular drug.
“It remains rare, but if I had known, I would never have taken that,” admits Daniel Doyon, stifling a sob.
The 69 -year -old man took the medicine Ozempic for a few months for his type 2 diabetes, at the suggestion of his family doctor, when his vision in the left eye suddenly became blurred on June 12.
“I said to my spouse:” cuddles, my view is not such “. I thought I had a detachment of the retina, ”says the resident of Bromont, in Estrie.
Fatter
He compares his vision problems to a fatty filter over his eye or with water that moves on a lake. He finds it difficult to see objects very close to him, so that he knocks everywhere and that he is completely dazzled in large -surface stores with powerful lighting.
Daniel Doyon quickly consulted an optometrist, then an ophthalmologist, who detected anything in his eye. He then went to the emergency, panicked at the idea of having a brain tumor.
It is ultimately a resident in medicine, during a second visit to the ophthalmologist, who discovered what he had while looking carefully at the bottom of his eye: an anterior ischemic optical neuropathy (noiana).
An eye infarction
It is an optical nerve infarction, which causes a sudden loss of vision, when a tiny blood vessel of the eye no longer receives enough blood. Mr. Doyon lost 80% of his visual field, he explains.
Although his evil should not get worse or spread to the second eye, he may however be irreversible.
He was an optometrist friend who made the link with the injections of Ozempic he took. The American Optometry Association has issued a warning this summer on the risks of Noiana, affecting one in 10,000.
Daniel Doyon immediately stopped the medication. He deplores that no doctor having treated him was aware of these risks or told him about it.
“It’s so easy [d’avoir une ordonnance]. But you can’t give someone without asking questions about their sight, ”he deplores. Becoming visually impaired is a cruel irony for this retiree from the area of eye lenses, who is forced to take naps to rest her eye since June.
Europe warns
For its part, the manufacturer of Ozempic, Novo Nordisk, refutes a cause and effect link between his medication and the Noiana.
Ozempic is an injectable medication designed against type 2 diabetes, but effective for weight loss.
Photo MARTIN ALARIE
However, the European labels of Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy, which all contain semaglutide, will have to include Noiana as a very rare adverse effect. “We are in talks with Health Canada concerning this safety signal,” concludes pharmaceutics by email.
The World Health Organization also issued an opinion on this risk.
“There is a reasonable doubt”: a doctor calls for caution
If it is difficult to establish a direct link between the Ozempic and the losses of vision, experts agree on the lack of data and studies on the issue.
“We cannot exclude that there is a direct relationship, it remains something to investigate. There is a reasonable doubt, ”pleads the endocrinologist and researcher Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret.
The doctor, who follows many diabetic patients, believes that caution is in order. He himself does not prescribe the drug without examining the view beforehand, for example.
Dr. Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret, Director, Diabetes clinic of the Montreal Clinical Research Institute in Montreal in April 2025.
Photo QMI agency, Amanda Moisan
The node of the problem, according to the Dr Rabasa-Lhoret is that “the reasons why Ozempic (diabetes and overweight) are also prescribed are also risk factors” for optical neuropathies, called “noiana”.
On its website, the Novo Nordisk pharmaceutics, which manufactures the Ozempic, stresses that “changes in vision” are potential side effects to be reported to your doctor, it doesn’t matter whether the drug is taken for diabetes or overweight.
“We lack data,” summarizes the scientific communicator Jonathan Jarry, of the Organization for Science and Society of McGill University.
He has made a review of some “imperfect” studies which report an increase in the risk of Noiana with the Ozempic, while others do not see.
He adds that, even if the risk is doubled, it is a low risk, comparing it to double its chances of winning the lottery, still according to the few studies available.
Still, the Dr Rabasa-Lhoret expects “the health authorities to twist the arm of Novo Nordisk so that much more serious studies are done”.
