When James Norris, a 56-year-old mechanic from Roxbury, New Jersey, went on a low dose of Mounjaro, a GLP-1 medication similar to Ozempic, to lose weight in March 2023, he thought it would be a miracle drug.
At 289 pounds, he had struggled to lose weight for years with diet and exercise. His wife had lost 60 pounds in several months on the medication, and her success convinced him to give it a shot.
“I just couldn’t keep weight off — [the drug] seemed like a good alternative,” he said.
In the year that followed, he lost 89 pounds and was able to wean off medications he was taking for high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Then, in March 2024, shortly after his doctor upped his dosage to 2.5 milligrams (he’d started at 1.5 mg), he woke up one morning with clouded vision in his left eye. Two weeks later, vision in his right eye became blurry.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” said Norris, who initially thought a sinus infection might be to blame.
But, after getting a CT-scan and seeing a neuro-ophthalmologist, it was revealed he had non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), a condition in which the loss of blood flow to the optic nerve causes sudden vision loss.
“I was devastated,” he said. “It’s extremely rare to get NAION in both eyes.”
Recent studies have shown an association between drugs such as Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy — which have become phenomenally popular for weight loss — and an increased risk of NAION.
Of the estimated 15 million Americans now taking such medications for Type 2 diabetes and weight loss, only a relative few have experienced the issue, but for those who have, it’s life-altering.
“I’ve been a mechanic my whole life — I can’t do anything hands on anymore,” said Norris, who stopped taking Mounjaro around July 2024 but still has significantly impaired vision.
He now mostly does administrative work from a computer and believes the risk of the medications, particularly at higher doses, isn’t worth it.
While it’s unclear how many people on these drugs are experiencing vision issues, Norris’s attorney, Robert King, said his firm alone has received “hundreds” of GLP-1 medication and vision-loss related cases.
“The biggest thing is the sheer number of eye injury cases related to something that is supposed to be gastrointestinal medication and the fact that no one would ever suspect a weight loss drug is going to make them immediately blind in one eye,” King, who is based in Rochester, NY, told The Post.
A review conducted by physician-scientists from the University of Utah’s John A. Moran Eye Center published in JAMA Ophthalmology on January 30, 2025, looked at nine patients who reported vision loss after taking semaglutide or tirzepatide, the active ingredients in Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound.
They found the patients taking these drugs developed three potentially blinding conditions affecting the optic nerve — the part of the eye that sends visual signals to the brain.
Of the nine patients, seven reported NAION-like symptoms; one had papillitis, an inflammation of the optic nerve head; and one individual developed paracentral acute middle maculopathy, which can cause a blind spot in vision.
The January study came on the heels of July 2024 research from Mass Eye and Ear, a teaching hospital at Harvard Medical School. It found an association between semaglutides and an increased risk of NAION.
Diabetics taking the medication were found to be four times more at risk for NAOIN than those not on the drugs. Those who were overweight or obese and taking the drug to lose weight were seven times more at risk.
Norris wasn’t aware of any such dangers when he went on the drug.
“I had no idea this could happen,” he said, noting that he plans to file a lawsuit against Mounjaro drugmaker Lilly and Company.
Ozempic and Mounjaro list “changes in vision” as a potential side effect on their websites, while Wegovy lists “change in vision in people with type 2 diabetes.” None of the websites explicitly warn users about NAION.
A spokesperson for Lilly, the US company that makes Mounjaro, as well as the similar Zepbound, said patient safety is a “top priority” and they “actively engage in monitoring, evaluating, and reporting safety information for all our medicines.”
A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, the Danish manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy, told The Post “NAION is a very rare eye disease, and it is not an adverse drug reaction.” They said that after evaluating the research and an internal safety assessment, “Novo Nordisk is of the opinion that the benefit-risk profile of semaglutide remains unchanged.”
Dr. Joseph Rizzo, professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and a senior author on the study published in JAMA Ophthalmology, told The Post that he isn’t outright discouraging people from taking these medications, but those who already have vision loss should proceed with caution.
“Let’s say they don’t have diabetes but they have advanced glaucoma, then I would be exceptionally careful about taking the medicine — you’re not starting from a normal visual status,” he told The Post.
San Diego-based Michael Sabellico, 60, did have normal vision when he went on Ozempic in March 2024 to both lose weight and manage his Type 2 diabetes.
When he started, he weighed 185 pounds and had near perfect sight. After eight weeks on a dose of 1.5 mg, he was down five pounds. But then he woke up one morning and couldn’t see clearly.
An optometrist found his optic nerve was inflamed and diagnosed him with NAION. He was given a steroid to help with the inflammation.
But, because there was no research at the time linking NAION to GLP-1s, doctors also upped his dosage of Ozempic to manage his blood sugar.
He didn’t stop the Ozempic until May, 2024, at which point his vision was permanently impaired.
He now has 20/70 vision in his left eye and below average 20/30 vision in his right eye.
“If I had a patch over my right eye it would be difficult to read,” said Sabellico, who is now managing his diabetes with the drug Trulicity and plans to take legal action. “The letters jump around.”
Cheryl Bovee, a 56-year-old former retail worker from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has already taken legal action against Novo Nordisk. She filed a lawsuit in February alleging that the company’s marketing was “deceptive and misleading about the true risks associated with [the] use of Ozempic.”
She is legally blind after developing NAION while using Ozempic as directed by her physicians to manage her Type 2 Diabetes last year. She was not on the medication for weight loss and it’s unclear how much her weight changed while on it, her lawyer noted.
What is clear, however, is that her vision is severely degraded.
“I can no longer work. I can no longer drive. I have to be careful just walking around my block. I can’t see at night,” Bovee said. “It’s completely changed my life.”
