Hi guys! I lost my health insurance and after surgery my doctor said to continue to take my nexium for 3 months. well, I lost insurance and am almost out of nexium and cant afford nexium out of pocket. I have to switch to an over the counter PPI! Can you suggest what your taking (OTC) and how it works for you? Thank you!

Hi guys! I lost my health insurance and after surgery my doctor said to continue to take my nexium for 3 months. well, I lost insurance and am almost out of nexium and cant afford nexium out of pocket. I have to switch to an over the counter PPI! Can you suggest what your taking (OTC) and how it works for you? Thank you!

Nexium and Prilosec are close kissing cousins - when Prilosec was going off patent a few years ago, Nexium was created from it by making minimal changes to the molecule in order to patent it as a new drug. For the vast majority of people, Prilosec works just fine. The generic name is omeprazole and it is available over the counter in 20mg tablets for about $15 per 42 tablets at costco and a little more at other stores. 40mg tablets are available by prescription for around $30 for 60. I use the OTC omeprazole twice a day, though if it were a longer term thing I would look into using the prescription version once a day as that would be a bit cheaper.

i use the generic store brand which is Omeprazole

Pepicd is what my doctor gave me in the hospital and has told me to continue it for up to three weeks post op.

I switched to prilosec. I also had a change in deductible for prescriptions and a one month supply was going to cost me $300. I took the prilosec and had no problems with it taking one a day. I did not want to do the generic and for me the difference was only a few dollars and in the sunday papers once a month there was a coupon for prilosec. Good Luck!

I take prilosec

thank you so much for the replies! this helps so much!!!!

You can buy generic prilosec (omeprazole) at Costco in bulk rather cheaply. That's what I do, and at one 20mg pill a day before bedtime, it's a trivial expense.