Jenny Mollen recently described her “harrowing” experience with taking a GLP-1 drug to deal with her hyperthyroidism and autoimmune issues.
During an appearance on “Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa,” the actress explained that she was microdosing tirzepatide (also known as Mounjaro or Zepbound), as well as other peptides, to help deal with her conditions. The medication can help with regulating blood sugar, per WebMD, but has also commonly been taken for weight loss in recent years.
However, while taking these meds, she ended up in the hospital after a terrifying health scare.
“I think that something happens with your period, and maybe it’s just like the perimenopausal situation, but suddenly I was, like, hemorrhaging,” Mollen explained. “It was, like, blood clots the size of dinosaur eggs. It was so scary. I went into the bathroom and I felt like I was laying an egg. Like you felt it coming out of you. And so I run to the bathroom, and I literally sit down on the toilet, and I hear this like plop and just like blood everywhere. Then I look into my underwear, and there’s literally — I was like, ‘Am I an after-school special where, like, you don’t know you’re pregnant and there’s just like a baby in the toilet? What is it?’”
At this point, she called for her then-husband, Jason Biggs, for help.
“I’m screaming for Jason, I’m like, ‘Jasoooon!’ and Jason isn’t the calmest, he’s sort of like, whatever emotion I’m at, he meets me there, so he’s like … screaming like it’s a horror movie,” Mollen recalled. “Then I just kind of go out, go through the rest of the day like having these blood clots, but I’m just in the house, but I’m like, ‘Baby, I think that I’m, like, losing too much blood,’ and Jason’s laying in bed now, it’s like 8 o’clock at night. He’s like passed out next to me. He’s like, ‘You’re fine!’ Because he doesn’t know.”
Unfortunately, things escalated from there.
“Meanwhile, I walk to the bathroom to try to pee. I have a vasovagal reaction. I pass out on the floor,” she said. “I’m calling him. I’m like, ‘Jason, oh, my God, I’m unconscious, help me!’”
Biggs wanted to drive Mollen to the emergency room, but she couldn’t walk, so they ended up calling an ambulance. She was in the hospital all night, with staff giving her fluids and telling her she needed a D&C (Dilation and Curettage).
“That night was harrowing. It was so scary,” Mollen said.
To this day, she’s not sure whether it was the medication that caused this reaction.
“I don’t know if it was the GLP-1 necessarily, but I think it was, because I think it was like messing with my hormones a little bit,” she said. “I think had I stayed on it, I would have been fine, but getting off it and then back on it was what screwed me.”
The Crazy, Stupid, Love actress had previously opened up about her hyperthyroidism in 2018, telling her Instagram followers that the condition was behind her rapid weight loss at the time. At an event later that year, she said, “I’m feeling good. I’m on meds. I’m just dealing with it (via People).”
It’s unclear which medications the star was taking at the time.
Aside from this “horror movie,” Mollen has been making headlines recently amid her divorce from Biggs, which they announced in May. They were married for 18 years and share two sons, Sid, 12, and Lazlo, 8.