What did @lizdamyl actually say?
After seven months on semaglutide (Ozempic) with "not one pound" lost, she switched to tirzepatide (which she calls "mandaro" throughout, meaning Mounjaro) and says weight came off "right away." She eventually moved to compounded tirzepatide through IVIМ Health after insurance stopped covering brand-name Mounjaro, and claims a total loss of about 140 pounds. She also promotes IVIМ's compounded semaglutide at $99/month and compounded tirzepatide at $199/month, with an affiliate link in her bio.
Worth noting: she repeatedly mispronounces the drug names, calling tirzepatide "chisepatide" and "mandaro" instead of Mounjaro. That matters because 96,000 viewers are absorbing this information, and garbled drug names create real confusion when people try to research or discuss treatment with a provider.
Does the science back this up?
Yes, with important nuance. Non-response to semaglutide followed by response to tirzepatide is biologically plausible and documented in clinical practice, even if large head-to-head switching trials are limited. The two drugs work differently enough that one failing doesn't predict the other will.
Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist. Tirzepatide is a dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist. The addition of glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) activity appears to drive meaningfully greater weight loss in trials. The SURMOUNT-1 trial (Jastreboff et al., 2022, NEJM) showed tirzepatide at its highest dose produced mean weight loss of 22.5% body weight versus roughly 15% seen in STEP 1 for semaglutide (Wilding et al., 2021, NEJM). That gap is real. Whether the GIP component explains differential response in semaglutide non-responders specifically hasn't been confirmed in a large randomized trial, but the mechanistic argument holds up.
What did they get wrong (or right)?
She got the core lived experience right: non-response to one GLP-1 agent does not mean non-response to all of them. Providers increasingly recognize this in clinical practice. Credit where it's due.
What she got wrong, or at least left dangerously vague, is the compounded drug piece. She implies compounded tirzepatide from IVIМ Health is essentially the same thing as Mounjaro, just cheaper. That framing is misleading. Compounded drugs are not FDA-approved and are not required to demonstrate the same bioequivalence as brand-name products. The FDA has flagged safety concerns about compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide specifically, including reports of dosing errors associated with compounded versions (FDA Drug Safety Communication, 2024). She never mentions any of that.
She also attributes her 140-pound loss entirely to the medication switch, with no mention of dietary changes, activity, or other factors. That kind of single-cause framing oversimplifies how these drugs work in real patients.
What should you actually know?
If semaglutide isn't working for you after an adequate trial at therapeutic doses, switching to tirzepatide is a legitimate clinical conversation to have with your provider. The drugs are distinct enough that non-response to one doesn't rule out the other.
On compounded GLP-1 drugs: they exist in a complicated regulatory space. Brand-name Mounjaro and Zepbound are FDA-approved with defined manufacturing standards. Compounded versions are not. The FDA placed both compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide on shortage lists, which temporarily permitted compounding, but that status has changed and continues to evolve. Anyone considering compounded versions should ask their provider specific questions about the compounding pharmacy's accreditation and quality controls, and should not assume a lower price means equivalent safety or efficacy to the branded product.
Seven months without meaningful response on semaglutide also raises questions worth exploring with a provider: Was the dose titrated appropriately? Were there adherence issues? Are there metabolic or hormonal factors complicating response? This video skips all of that.
Is the affiliate promotion a problem?
The #ivimaffiliate hashtag is present, which means she's financially incentivized to recommend IVIМ Health. She doesn't state this disclosure verbally in the video itself, only in the hashtags, which the FTC's 2023 endorsement guidelines consider insufficient for material connections. Viewers watching a 96,000-view video about a weight loss drug switch deserve to know upfront that the creator gets paid if they click that link. That's not a minor footnote.