All Heart-- No Heartburn

Another symptom that went away with my new regime is heartburn. I had a few years taking omeprazole (Prilosec) every day... and still had heartburn on some nights.

The bummer about omeprazole is that once you're taking it everyday it's really challenging to get off of it because there is a rebound effect.

Once I managed to lose about 25 pounds I started working on getting off this tricky medication. I started by taking the omeprazole every other day and on the alternate days taking the highest dose of ranitidine (Zantac). Rantidine is a medication that is less strong than omeprazole. My understanding is that omeprazole blocks all three types of acid producers in the stomach while rantidine blocks only one type  (though I am sure this is a gross simplification). After I lost a few more pounds I dropped down to the lower dose of rantidine. Once a few more pounds were gone I finally dropped the omeprazole and took rantidine everyday. A few pounds after that and I dropped to every other day, then every third day. Finally I let it go altogether.

Now I never ever get heartburn and I'm medication free. It's such a great feeling. The doctor who originally prescribed the omeprazole said if I ever wanted to get off of it I should come back in for help in weaning off of it. I am not a doctor, but chose to wean off of it on my own. It took 8 or 9 months and it's all in the past now.