How Weight Loss Pills Nearly Sent Me To An Early Grave

By Nnanna Nzewi

Sometimes last year, a good friend of mine, I met on this blue app, advised that I start fasting for weight loss, so that I can lose belly fat that is giving me funny shape (according to her).

I quickly put a call to my father king, Igwe Dr Chukwuemekalum Ilounoegbunam JP, Eze Dunu of Ifitedunu who dissuaded me against it, and would rather I stick to walking and and light exercises with adjustment on my diets and time of eating. He advised that I do more fruits and vegetables and eat my supper around 6pm.
But, I stubbornly heeded my friend’s advice and started the next day, taking only water for 3days, and though we were to do it for one week, I couldn’t continue due to dizziness and drowsiness occasioned by severe hunger and thirst.

Afterwards, she suggested a pill, a set of herbal tea, and some other concotions that cost around 180k, advising that I take them holistically and that after one month, I will see the difference.

I took the pill the first day, but by the third day, I lost every appetite for eating food, so much so that my wife starting complaining that if I die for not eating food, that I will go to hell. My DMGS class of ‘96 that were present during our brother Onyeme mother’s burial would notice that I took only bottle water all through, despite the the beautiful delicacies and choiced wines and brandies on our table.

The laxative in that slimming package termed detoxification tea, only disturbs my belly in the morning and I will end of up staying in the toilet for an hour or more even when I couldn’t eat any food. That was my routine from the beginning of the year.

But we noticed a strange thing!

My health nosedived and I was constantly down with malaria and typhoid every 3weeks. I became a frequent guest at st Charles Lab, one of the best labs in Awka and at a point, I had to check for infections of all kinds yet nothing was found.

I began to live a life of antibiotics for treatment of typhoid and malaria, not until June/July, when I went for yet another test and it still showed typhoid fever and it was suggested I be given intravenous injection, at least, to stop the incessant reoccurence.

Since, January, I stopped taking any other kind of water except Nestle Bottle Water and on the advise of Dr John Nneke, a UK-based heart surgeon, I started exercising my heart through press-up. I also joined X-Fit table tennis club and made sure I ate once a day in the afternoon since, I have lost my sense of smell.

Then the fever became more severe, and immediately I was placed on drip and intravenous my heart blocked and I couldn’t breathe. That was around 9pm and by 1am on that fateful day, I beckoned on my 12-year-old first son to call Dr Amyci Anieto, my class mate and a consultant physician.

It was Dr Amyci Anieto who predicted accurately through phone conversation with my son and wife, that I am an ulcer patient and that’s the only thing that can cause such discomfort when I was given intravenous, recommending that I should be taken to hospital on emergency immediately. I later learned that he even forwarded some medical instructions to my wife via SMS and WhatsApp for the persual of any medical personnel that will attend to me, though I know my wife must have told him that I had not been eating at home since January and that I took pills, which she had hidden fee weeks ago

That was how my wife drove me to the emergency ward of Regina Ceali Hospital, Awka, close to her father house, in company of my manager and others, while my 12-year-old son was left alone with his less than 2yr old brother.

I was wheeled to the emergency ward unconsciously and a sample of my blood and other details were taken to the lab and upon checking my vitals, my BP was even normal though my temperature was around 40% (isinye ite na aghu’m ogheee). Then Dr Amyci Anieto was online all through and after his conversation with the medical doctors on the other side, I was administered with an ulcer, fever calming and probably other injections through my vein. I vomitted smelly liquids and my heart unblocked and I became conscious again instantly!

I later fell asleep in the over-crowded ward full of really sick and unhealthy souls and by morning, when I woke up, three other patients around me had given up the ghost and it was this same slumping and dying stuff.

I discharged myself by refusing to enter that ward again upon all the pleadings from nwanyi Awka and medical personnel present. The H-pyliri was the last lab that came out and confirmed that I had ulcer, as a result of the unprescribed weight loss pills, prescribed by the friend I met on Facebook (who may sincerely wish I get my tummy shape back at 46).

Today, I am fine, as confirmatory tests showed.
I play my table tennis daily, embark on walking religiously every morning and I eat three square meal from nwanyi Awka under well-prepared and guided menu and I have dropped 12kg within three weeks, whereas upon all the pills, I still weighed 110kg as at the day I was rushed to the hospital emergency unconscious which was my weight in January when I started.
Today, I weigh 93kg!

I wrote the first and second part of the last episodes of who want APGA dead, which I started in 2018 on the sick bed.

Dearly beloved, the best form of being healthy is to eat right, exercise religiously and be positive-minded and happy always. Run away from health shortcuts and instant-result pills and laxatives aka detoxification tea. They are killers!
Then routinely check your vitals as adults and make adjustments in your lifestyles; joins health and fitness clubs or a social club where ideas are shared, not where gluttons gather in merriment steadily thereby increasing their health risk factors.
Above of all, run away from toxic relationships and be a lover of God, good music and good books.

Nnanna Nzewi (Otabili-Onyenwanneya)
09030270382

16 August, 2024