Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik suffered from ‘explosive diarrhea’ after trying out a weight-loss drug.
The 50-year-old actress spoke about her ordeal with GLP-1 drugs in a candid new Free Press essay published on Friday, titled My GLP-1 Nightmare.
Bialik detailed the shock side effects she experienced, which included ‘uncontrollable diarrhea’, and admitted that she lost the race to the bathroom more than a few times.
‘Cramping. Bloating. Full-body aching, as though I had the flu,’ she described the symptoms that plagued her. ‘And an inability to keep down even small sips of water without sprinting to the bathroom with yet more explosive diarrhea.’
‘More than three times, I didn’t make it,’ she added. ‘What followed was closer to an allergic reaction—the kind I once had to an antibiotic for a sinus infection, which led me to soil myself without warning and cancel a camping trip to spend the weekend on the toilet. This was that, but for three days.’
The star – who played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom – also complained of ‘sulfur burps so violent they left me afraid to open my mouth in public.’
Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik, 50, suffered from ‘explosive diarrhea’ after trying out a weight-loss drug; Pictured in 2024
The star spoke about her ordeal with GLP-1 drugs in a candid new Free Press essay published on Friday, titled My GLP-1 Nightmare; Seen in a Big Bang Theory still with Jim Parsons
Bialik also detailed having ‘sneezing attacks every time I tried to eat or drink — which apparently has a name, snatiation.’
Speaking about what prompted her to go on the GLP-1 drug, the Blossom star wrote, ‘I grew up in the limelight, with my appearance scrutinized weekly from the time I starred in my own NBC show at 14.’
‘I was blissfully unaware of my weight back then’, she wrote, adding, ‘I was naturally lanky and athletic, and I ate whatever I wanted with no concern for weight gain.’
The Jeopardy! host said that when she was a teenager she was put on medication to ‘manage my moods’ and ended up gaining weight.
She wrote that by her forties she ‘acquired a deep sense of shame around my body’ and ‘felt obese’ at a size six.
‘By the time social media arrived — with its fixation on being thinner, more toned, more surgically perfected — that pressure tipped into a disordered relationship with food that I have spent years trying to untangle,’ she wrote.
She said that by early menopause she gained an additional 20 pounds. ‘I also don’t seem to have the discipline, motivation, or time to lose them,’ the star added.
However, Bialik went on to say that her decision to take on a weight-loss drug was not prompted by a desire to lose weight but because her doctor told her it would help ‘ease symptoms I’ve struggled with for basically my entire adult life.’
Bialik detailed the side effects she experienced, which included ‘uncontrollable diarrhea’, and admitted that she lost the race to the bathroom more than a few times; Seen in 2025
The star – who played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom – also complained of ‘sulfur burps so violent they left me afraid to open my mouth in public’; Seen in 2023
The actress wrote that by her forties she ‘acquired a deep sense of shame around my body’ and ‘felt obese’ at a size six; Seen in a still from Big Bang Theory
Bialik wrote that she was ‘naturally lanky and athletic’ until she was put on medication to ‘manage my moods’ as a teenager and ended up gaining weight; Bialik (R) seen in a 1994 still from the TV show Blossom with Joey Lawrence and Finola Hughes
Bialik shared that she was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid, at age 23.
The actress said that she was prescribed medication and didn’t make lifestyle changes, which she suspected, ‘very slowly made my condition worse.’
She was later diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome, dysautonomia, connective tissue disease, and mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) in the years that followed, after suffering from ‘four unexplained hernias, full-body rashes and welts, severe histamine reactions to foods and smells, palpitations, hourly wake-ups for an entire year’ and ‘crying jags alternating with crippling depression.’
Bialik decided to try a GLP-1 drug after ‘three separate doctors’ suggested it to her.
She added she wanted to go on the drug ‘not because of the 20 postmenopausal pounds but because the drugs have shown promise in reducing the systemic inflammation that drives autoimmune conditions.’
‘I was exhausted from being sick, from the endless parade of specialists, from the diets, the protocols, and the promises. Maybe this could be the magic cure,’ she wrote.
However, after taking just one shot of the lowest dose of a synthetic GLP-1, Bialik was hit with a number of symptoms, including diarrhea.
‘To say I had an adverse reaction would be somewhat of an understatement,’ she wrote.
She was then told by her doctor and nurse that extreme side effects are not unusual when taking the drug.
‘This drug has a very long half-life; my prescribing doctor had told me to expect at least a week of this, if not more,’ she wrote.
Kris Jenner, 70, previously also admitted that Ozempic made her ‘really sick’ and ‘nauseous,’ prompting her to explore ‘different options’; Seen with daughter Kim Kardashian in May
Last year comedian Amy Schumer, 45, reflected on her ‘horrible’ experience with Ozempic and said she suffered from extreme nausea and vomiting; Seen in April
After she stopped taking the drug, Bialik decided to see a gastroenterologist who told her that GLP-1 drugs ‘are extremely disruptive to the body and should not be used outside of a specific, regulated set of serious medical reasons — namely, life-compromising obesity and its related health consequences’ and that she ‘did not meet that bar.’
Bialik wrapped up her essay on an ironic note as she recalled that upon leaving the appointment, she caught her reflection in the mirror and ‘did not recoil’ as her ‘second chin’ had vanished and her skirt had begun to sag on her body.
Bialik is not the first star to describe negative effects of GLP-1s.
Kris Jenner, 70, admitted that Ozempic made her ‘really sick’ and ‘nauseous,’ prompting her to explore ‘different options.’
And last year comedian Amy Schumer, 45, reflected on her ‘horrible’ experience with Ozempic and said she suffered from extreme nausea and vomiting.