Heartburn while weening off PPI

[vsg11917 0]

Hello Team, Long time lurker first time poster.

I had a VSG on 1/19/17. I had a leak. I've been in recovery for the majority of the time between then and now. I had a stent placed in my stomach that sucked. While I had the stent I started taking 40mg of Prilosec every day.

The stent was removed and I was happy to find that I didn't have any heartburn and everything felt great. I've been able to eat foods, bla bla bla. My doctor now says, "if everything is going well start weening yourself off of the Prilosec, you shouldn't be on it long term." ok... so I reduced my dose by 50% which is what I was told. I'm down to 20mg Prilosec (one pill). BUT now I have heartburn all day. From what I'm reading online this can happen when you try to go off PPI's. It's almost a withdrawal effect.

Has anyone experienced this? What should I do? Go back up to 40mg of prilosec? Take a H2 blocker like pepcid? Tums? DGL?

[RickM 1,753]

Yes, it is very common. It may be too early to wean off of them (some never get off of them, unfortunately) but for many it just takes more time. Many surgeons keep their patients on them six months as a routine practice, others it's just an individual thing.

Using H2 blockers like Pepcid or Zantac is a good intermediate step - cut your PPI in half and introduce the H2I. Hint - H2I's are often considered to be particularly good at overnight reflux, so try them at night with the PPI in the morning. Then try cutting your PPI in half again or cut back the H2I. Work on getting down to just the H2I and then ultimately nothing if possible. Play around with it and see what works in your case.