Virus outbreak contained in Uganda
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
That would be a heck of a hurdle to overcome for marketing if the drug actually worked by killing you.
Then again, prospects would be much brighter in the Chinese market.
Another study, just out, shows that acid reflux may increase esophageal cancer. So “you pay your money and take your choice”.
Ugh. I take “Prevacid” almost every day or I get extreme burning in the gut & throat - I wonder if that’s next. OTC stuff don’t work. Am in shape and eat well, it’s just there.
ER docs and Cardiologists have been using these drugs for over a decade to help diagnose/separate a heart attack from severe gastric reflux/GERD.
After doing an EKG and if the results are normal, a quick trial and rx for these drugs will eliminate the heart as the culprit for each patient. If the patient gets better and the symptons go away, they had a severe GERD episode which can be controlled by these drugs and diet.
A gastro-type doctor told me a couple of months ago to start taking over the counter Prilosec. Apparently I had this GERD condition and didn’t feel it, but over the course of several years the acid scarred and narrowed my esophagus until a standard size vitamin pill was hard for me to choke down. One night back in June a tiny piece of pork chop got stuck and I had to go to the ER to get it taken out.
The nurse said that here in the Phoenix area, this one doctor alone sees two or three patients a week with food stuck in their esophagus. On a followup visit he will go in and stretch it back out to its normal inside diameter again. Some of his patients come in every 5-10 years to get stretched when the narrowing gets to be too much. They will be there for 2 hours and the entire procedure takes all of 15 minutes.
I thought I had a birth defect or something, and was surprised and relieved to find that it’s not all that uncommon and it can be treated fairly easily. Anyone who has any trouble at all swallowing due to a narrowed esophagus should consult a gastrointestinal doctor and get stretched out again. Just FYI, for anyone who might need the information.
When I took Prilosec for a while, I got heart palpitations. Then I would go off it, and within a day the heart palpitations went away. Then I’d go back on the Prilosec, and within a week or so the palpitations would come back. Rinse and repeat. So I know it was the Prilosec causing the palps. Since I stopped taking it, those palpitations have never returned.
Now I take a whey protein powder, and it has the reflux under control. I have also found that certain foods (like cheese or maybe ice cream) make the reflux worse, perhaps related to a “food sensitivity” which I am trying to figure out.
for later