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Reality star reveals ‘scary' hospital dash after suffering ‘episode' and mini stroke at 24

Reality star reveals ‘scary' hospital dash after suffering ‘episode' and mini stroke at 24

The Irish Sun11-06-2025
A REALITY TV star turned business owner has revealed a "really scary" health ordeal which left him "paralysed."
The Netflix series alum, 24, captured a snap from his hospital bed as he documented his hugely worrying "episode" for his followers.
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Reality TV star Liam Brown has revealed a scary health incident which left him 'paralysed'
Credit: Instagram
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The 24-year-old Snowflake Mountain alum posted a lengthy medical update to social media
Credit: Instagram
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It came after the Coventry lad lost more than six stone with weight loss jabs
Credit: Pete Dadds
Snowflake Mountain
contestant
Liam Brown, who starred in the
reality TV
show back in 2022,
is currently seeking treatment for a suspected mini stroke.
After uploading an image showing him in the medical ward, with his bed surrounded by blue curtains, he wrote: "Just a very sad update from me.
"Really scary situation but I am currently in hospital so for anyone trying to contact me sorry I haven't got back to you!"
Liam, who
landed his "dream job" at
read more snowflake mountain
"I came out of it and ignored it but my speech didn't fully return properly and then it happened again yesterday.
"I was taken into hospital and I'm being treated for a mini stroke also known as a Transient Ischemic Attack as I can't feel the right side of my face.
"But right now, they're not 100 per cent what caused this to happen, I'm undergoing so many tests, blood tests and scans to either try and find a blood clot or what caused this to happen."
He rounded off with the words: "Will keep everyone updated."
Most read in Reality
NEW LOOK
Liam's health shock came just weeks after we reported
In April, he
showcased before and after images of his impressive new look in a candid post on
Instagram
.
Netflix fans all have the same complaint about new show Snowflake Mountain where 'clueless kidults' get rude awakening
The TV star and businessman, who has spoke openly about his use of weight loss jabs, took to his Instagram grid for a post showcasing his new svelte look.
In words emblazoned on the snaps the Coventry lad wrote: "Probably needed a hug.
"Lost 6.5 stone instead."
Alongside the mirror selfies showing off his new slender figure he filled fans in on the finer details.
What are the other side effects of weight loss jabs?
Like any medication, weight loss jabs can have side effects.
Common side effects of injections such as Ozempic include:
Nausea
: This is the most commonly reported side effect, especially when first starting the medication. It often decreases over time as your body adjusts.
Vomiting
: Can occur, often in conjunction with nausea.
Diarrhea
: Some people experience gastrointestinal upset.
Constipation
: Some individuals may also experience constipation.
Stomach pain or discomfort
: Some people may experience abdominal pain or discomfort.
Reduced appetite
: This is often a desired effect for people using Ozempic for weight loss.
Indigestion
: Can cause a feeling of bloating or discomfort after eating.
Serious side effects can also include:
Pancreatitis
: In rare cases, Ozempic may increase the risk of inflammation of the pancreas, known as pancreatitis, which can cause severe stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting.
Kidney problems
: There have been reports of kidney issues, including kidney failure, though this is uncommon.
Thyroid tumors
: There's a potential increased risk of thyroid cancer, although this risk is based on animal studies. It is not confirmed in humans, but people with a history of thyroid cancer should avoid Ozempic.
Vision problems
: Rapid changes in blood sugar levels may affect vision, and some people have reported blurry vision when taking Ozempic.
Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar)
: Especially if used with other medications like sulfonylureas or insulin.
He wrote: "I've been on Mounjaro 1 year this month so thought I'd jump on this trend!
"It's been a journey and not a very easy one at that, it's been hard at times and I've felt like giving it all up but I've stuck by my guns and kept pushing through.
"As I've now started lowering my doses and taking them every other week rather than every week, it gets more mentally challenging to fight away the thoughts every single day to slip back into old bad habits but I haven't come this far to just go 10 steps back!
"I have to look at my photos from then and now to motive me to carry on."
Mounjaro is an injectable prescription medicine that is used alongside diet and exercise to regulate blood sugar levels and promote weight loss.
Yet some users have reported horror stories of
TV CAREER
Snowflake Mountain saw 10 contestants put through their paces at a camp in order to try and kickstart them into standing on their own two feet.
The back-to-basics retreat was a rude awakening to just how pampered their lives had been so far.
There was no running water, no parents to wait on them - and worst of all, no Wi-Fi.
But by connecting to nature, they learned to graduate as fully-functioning adults, with a generous cash prize up for grabs.
Putting them through their paces were Joel and Matt - one a former Army Combat Engineer for almost 10 years and the other, a former member of the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal.
"Now, me and Matt, who survived off the land our whole lives, are gonna take these kids back to basics," Joel said.
"Why? Cause the wilderness forces you to toughen up! Are they gonna rise to the challenge or are they are gonna do what they do best? It's not gonna be easy!"
At the time,
As fans tuned in, many took to X with complaints about the conditions provided for the spoiled millennials.
Alongside an array of angry-faced emojis, one person penned: "The hilarious thing about Snowflake Mountain is that these kids are basically glamping. Terrible show."
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Liam told how he was undergoing numerous tests after his suspected mini stroke
Credit: Instagram
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He found fame on the reality series which saw 10 contestants sent to camp
Credit: Netflix
6
Liam, who then founded his own talent agency, apologised to clients and fans for not being in touch during his health issues
Credit: Instagram
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Drugs like Ozempic aren't changing negative narratives around diet and weight
Drugs like Ozempic aren't changing negative narratives around diet and weight

Irish Times

time11 minutes ago

  • Irish Times

Drugs like Ozempic aren't changing negative narratives around diet and weight

Friends keep asking me what I think about Ozempic . I know they're asking because I've written about food history, gender and eating disorders, but until recently I wasn't sure what I thought, wasn't sure that someone who has never had metabolic disease or lived in a body that attracted comment had any business having opinions about the drugs called GLP1 agonists. I support any development that undermines the idea that bodyweight has a moral aspect, or that individuals control the size of their bodies. We are shaped in every way by environment, society and genetics far more than by the small scope of personal choice within those determinants. Health is mostly determined by heredity and wealth. So if the new drugs stop people insisting that self-discipline and self-starvation are the answer to fatness, all to the good. [ Sarah Moss: 'I'm a classic first child. A driven overachiever. Slightly neurotic' Opens in new window ] But I'm not sure they're generally helping us live better lives. I gather GLP1 agonists are good as diabetes medication – not an area in which I am qualified to opine. Their rising use for other purposes seems to be correlated to increasing media excitement about extreme thinness, particularly in women, which is demoralising to those of us who grew up with heroin chic and the worship of emaciation and have lived in the shadow of those ideals ever since. If the drugs are changing narratives about diet and weight, I'm not seeing it. There's no decline in mindless writing about and advertising of 'guilt-free' foods and 'guilty pleasures'. (What you put in your mouth has no bearing on your moral worth. The only sinful foods are those harmfully produced.) READ MORE I understand that these medications work by depriving people of pleasure in eating. I'd argue that pleasure is politically and ideologically important as well as nice, that without pleasure we fall prey to the idea that life is nothing but scarcity and survival, which leads quickly to the idea that life is a competition and weakness is failure, at which point you're well down the road to dark places we don't need to go. Taking expensive drugs to make daily life less fun so you take up less space doesn't sound to me like the kind of choice made by happy people in a functional society, though you could argue that unhappy people in a dysfunctional society – for example, fat people hoping to be paid, promoted and desired as much as their thinner colleagues in Europe today – might perfectly sensibly make such decisions. Getting thin to succeed in a fat-phobic society is still an understandable individual solution to a structural problem. And it seems to me that the big structural problem here is not that people are fat but that we have created and continue to promote a food system that makes most consumers unwell, and are now creating and promoting a regime of medication that, at great financial and personal cost, claims to counteract the effects of that food system. We're all being sold ultra-processed, intensively farmed food that makes us and our planet sick, and then being sold drugs that moderate the effect of that food on individual bodies but compound the harm to the environment. I am certain that the same shareholders profit from the manufacture and sale of the food that causes the problem and the drugs that treat it. Ozempic's popularity is a symptom and driver of social and economic injustice, and I wish we could spend some of its cost on systemic change instead None of which means that I blame any individual for making whatever decisions seem necessary to cope. I only note that the troubles that show up in our bodies rarely began there, and therefore the sustainable solutions won't begin with injections. There are countries that have been able to reduce the proportions of intensively produced and processed foods consumed by their populations, especially by children. There are examples of local, regional and national governments creating and sometimes imposing healthier and more sustainable environments, but it can't happen without at least some popular demand, and the established interests and beneficiaries of harmful systems will never want such change. So what I think about Ozempic is that its popularity is a symptom and driver of social and economic injustice, and I wish we could spend some of its cost on systemic change instead. We could subsidise the production and transport of a lot of fresh local produce and build a lot of playgrounds, sports facilities and bike lanes for what we lose paying pharmaceutical companies to heal us from their absence. And it would be much more fun.

In Ozempic's home town they fear two things: a new set of tariffs, and a company in Kinsale
In Ozempic's home town they fear two things: a new set of tariffs, and a company in Kinsale

Irish Times

time11 minutes ago

  • Irish Times

In Ozempic's home town they fear two things: a new set of tariffs, and a company in Kinsale

It's an overcast morning in the small town of Bagsværd, Denmark , and the streets are empty. The suburb north of Copenhagen looks like any quiet neighbourhood at first glance. It only takes a few minutes to walk the length of the main street, then you start to pass small red brick houses with well-kept gardens. This isn't the type of place where you would expect to find one of Europe's biggest companies. Turn a corner, though, and you suddenly face a long road with row after row of sleek office buildings. In a few short years Novo Nordisk has morphed from a relatively low-profile Danish manufacturer of diabetes medication, into a pharmaceutical giant , on the back of massive demand for its new weight-loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy . READ MORE The market value of the company surpassed the size of Denmark's entire economy last year and, for a period, Novo Nordisk was Europe's most valuable company, eclipsing LVMH, the French luxury brand conglomerate that includes Louis Vuitton, Dior and Tiffany. 'I think every second person works there,' says Dorte Soelmark, a woman who runs a bakery nearby Novo Nordisk's headquarters in Bagsværd. The presence of the pharmaceutical giant in the neighbourhood is good for business, but she says there are downsides as well, from traffic bottlenecks to rising house prices. 'You leave at a certain time during the day, the traffic is just horrendous,' Soelmark says. [ Donald Trump says his tariff plan is working - but he now faces a vital call Opens in new window ] Dorte Soelmark, a worker in a bakery near Novo Nordisk's head offices in Bagsværd, Denmark Jesper Chistiansen, who owns a men's clothes shop in a small outlet in the town, says Novo Nordisk's success has been great for Denmark. 'It's very good for the whole country, for the community in Bagsværd,' he says. 'But also it's very expensive to live here.' The company has had a footprint in the Danish town since 1961, when it opened a laboratory. Its presence expanded significantly over the years. New offices for its headquarters were built a decade ago. The company employs 77,000 people, half of whom work in Denmark between Bagsværd and Kalundborg, where it has plans to massively expand a manufacturing plant and other sites. Novo Nordisk's stratospheric rise has been tied to huge demand for its blockbuster weight-loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. The anti-obesity medication inhibits the appetite and is administered by regular injections. Popularised as a way to lose weight by Hollywood celebrities, there had been a global clamour for Ozempic, either prescribed by a doctor or through rapidly expanding black markets selling the jab online. Production has struggled to keep pace, leading to supply shortages. Jesper Chistiansen says Novo Nordisk's success has been great for Denmark Bumper corporate tax receipts from Novo Nordisk have insulated Denmark economically, but also left the public balance sheet exposed to any big downturn in the company's fortunes. The pharma sector – one of Europe's big industrial beasts – is bracing itself for United States president Donald Trump to follow through on threats to levy huge tariffs on its exports to the US. Trump has repeatedly talked about bringing jobs and manufacturing capacity created by US pharma multinationals in Europe back to the US. To do this, the US president has threatened to put tariffs – which are effectively taxes on imports – of up to 200 per cent on pharma products coming across the Atlantic, in an attempt to force companies to make their medicines in the US. The European Union (EU) and the Trump administration have negotiated a deal that would see tariffs on most EU imports capped at 15 per cent , to avoid a trade war. The EU has pressed hard for any future import levies on pharma products to be capped at that blanket 15 per cent rate. However, EU officials remain concerned that regardless of commitments in a preliminary deal, Trump could decide to put sweeping tariffs on pharma anyway down the line. Novo Nordisk is on high alert waiting to see how things play out, like the rest of the industry. Novo Nordisk's stratospheric rise has been tied to huge demand for its blockbuster weight-loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. 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Several US multinationals, Pfizer, Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and others, have manufacturing plants in Ireland. The sector employs tens of thousands of people and a handful of those companies alone account for a decent chunk of the State's corporate tax take each year. When talking about pharma, Trump repeatedly singles out Ireland as having 'stolen' those jobs and revenues from the US. [ Irish exports climb to €134.4bn as US pharma sales surge Opens in new window ] Documents obtained by The Irish Times show the pharma industry has kept up that lobbying pressure, in both Dublin and Brussels. Photograph: Sergei Gapon/ AFP via Getty Images Taoiseach Micheál Martin has compared notes with several senior pharma executives about the best way to manage Trump's threats. Martin spoke to Pfizer's global chief executive, Albert Bourla, on the phone the day after Trump announced his 'liberation day' tariffs on nearly all global trading partners in early April. 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Warning fat jab supplies could run out as demand surges with 1 in 5 people trying to buy them last year
Warning fat jab supplies could run out as demand surges with 1 in 5 people trying to buy them last year

The Irish Sun

time6 hours ago

  • The Irish Sun

Warning fat jab supplies could run out as demand surges with 1 in 5 people trying to buy them last year

FAT jab supplies could run out — with one in five people ­trying to buy them last year. Pharmacists warn that ballooning demand 'goes far beyond what is clinically deliverable'. Advertisement 1 Fat jab supplies could run out after a huge surge in demand Millions of Brits are thought to be using fat-busting jabs such as Wegovy, Mounjaro and Ozempic. A poll for the National Pharmacy Association found one in five people, 21 per cent, attempted to buy a fat jab from a pharmacy in the past year. The figure shoots up to 35 per cent among 25 to 34-year-olds. NPA chairman Olivier Picard said: 'It's clear from this polling that many more people are interested in getting weight-loss jabs than would actually be suitable for treatment. Advertisement READ MORE ON FAT JABS ' 'We're also urging the Government to bring forward plans to include pharmacies in the roll-out of their NHS weight management programme.' The NHS has increased its roll-out of fat jabs by offering Mounjaro through GP practices, but only 220,000 people are likely to get it by 2028. It could take 12 years to reach everyone who is eligible, so millions are expected to buy them privately. Advertisement Most read in Health Exclusive But experts fear such strict access will drive patients to dodgy online sellers who put their health at risk. The poll also found 41 per cent said they would get the jabs on the NHS if they could, even if they were not obese. Watch Ellen's weight loss journey on fat jabs Rules on online prescribing have been tightened to prevent people pretending to be heavier than they are to quality. The injections cause the body to burn fat by turning off hunger signals and stopping you eating. Advertisement Prescriptions in

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