Side effects with omeprazole/Prilosec use

I love all the information and support that is available today. I started my roads on Gerd, Reflux, you name it 25 years ago. Sadly doctors prescribed the medications freely and continuously over the years . Trusting the doctors and have extremely bad acid reflux I followed the flow. Now 25 years later I have osteoporosis, and have tried just about as many was to get off of proton pump meds. So yeah as early as you can work through it as best you can if you can, without these complications of these medications.

I also have gerd and have been on medication since 1996. I am 75 and since I heard about the dementia I have to say I am quite concerned, like anyone else I would imagine at my age you forget somethings where you place things etc nothing major but I can’t help but think of the dementia now I know. I started with 40mg and I am now taking 20 mg a day. I have been seeing a nutritionist and have been working on lowering the amount I take, the reason I now take 20MG. I did have a flare up a couple of weeks ago and she gave me wheat germ capsules to heal my gut and PH level. I have to admit I still eat what isn’t good for me the only good thing about the 40 mg was I could eat everything I wanted. I recently purchased some crystallized ginger and I have to say that really helps infact I would say it’s almost a miracle when I eat something bad.
I am also doing decaf ginger tea at breakfast and only have one cup of coffee a day other than that I drink water. I wonder what the percentage is of people getting dementia? We never find out until years later what the side effects are?

This sounds hopeful
I've been taking Omeprazol daily since 2017 and I believe it is not helpful for my sclerosis of the GI tract
Thank you

I have been slowing weening off. I started with one day a week, taking vitamin E instead of omeprazole. My doctor recommended this and said you can’t take them together on same day, and just to alternate between the two of them.it was rough at first and I took it slow, doing this one day a week for months. Those days would be tough, but pushed though. Then I increased it two days a day (taking vitamin E instead of it). It took me over a year to wean off. If I have a really bad day, then the next day I might take it, but that was it. Unfortunately this past month, I have gone backwards and now taking omeprazole 3-4 days week. I need to take weaning off again. I have good things about Silver Fern to heal/fix Gerd but it is expensive. You just have to find what works for you and just start. You can do it!

How much Vit E do you take a day when you don't take the PPI?

Has anyone weaned off of 80mg ? I take 40mg in the morning and 40mg with dinner. My doctor wants me to stop taking the evening 40mg every other day and use pepcid instead on those days . and then stop evening dose completely after two weeks. I'm concerned that's too fast I stoped cold turkey with only 20mg and had severe acid reflux that's why My gi doctor put me on 80mg.

Does anyone have a name of a doctor that could weaned me off slower ?

You always have the freedom to ignore advice and wean down as slowly as you like. It’s not like you need a prescription. But I will tell You I weaned off all Proton pump inhibitors after 16 years because they have long term side effects like dementia/ cognitive decline that H2 agonists like Pepcid don’t have. So I took 2 Pepcid in morning and 1 before dinner to begin and supplemented with less food in single sittings, more tums and more water with my meals. Now I take 1 in the morning and rarely need a late day Pepcid or any Tums.
You should figure it out and get off PPIs in my opinion - while you can still remember why you wanted to.

So on PPI's our body makes more acid to compensate, so when we try to stop we are worse off then when we started.

I did successfully wean off. I would not follow any prescribed regimen but go with how you feel. If you have bad symptoms, backtrack and move more slowly.

I did replace omeprazole with Pepcid, slowly, over time, replacing one dose every other day, as your doc suggested, and sticking with that for a couple of weeks. Once you are on Pepcid only you can gradually taper that as well.

I don't eat after 5pm and am careful about what I eat then. Even water before bed can cause issues. I mostly use Tums at this point but sometimes pop 1/2 Pepcid or even a whole on (20mg). I tend to have periods when it is worse. If I do Pepcid for more than 3 days in a row, I taper again.

It's trite but "listen to your body." It sounds like you have a good doc. I know too many on PPI's long term with no advice on how to get off and your doc sounds like they have the right idea and would no doubt be fine with you customizing the taper.

Echoing the others here...if you feel the pace your doctor is recommending, I would slow it down. It's completely okay for you to disagree with your doctor and/or listen to your body (though I know that sounds cheesy).

I personally haven't weaned off PPIs, but I had to wean my father off it because annoyingly they prescribed it to him in the hospital preventatively at high doses and we weren't aware of it. He's really sensitive to medications (as am I), and we reduced it as slowly as was possible without driving ourselves crazy splitting tablets or capsules.

I'm extremely sensitive to medication (I literally have a health condition and that is one of the symptoms), so even when I have to work up to a dose, I have to go more slowly than the average person. I prefer that to nasty side effects that could last longer though.

You can always reduce the dosage more quickly if you find you're not experiencing side effects, but if you go too fast, you could get really, really uncomfortable. And if you can look into other lifestyle or diet changes that you might be able to amp up to help compensate for any possible increase in acid reflux you experience while you're going off it, that could help?