There’s a clinical trial going on about the effectiveness of famotidine (Pepcid) in treating Covid-19. It’s still underway and the results won’t be available for a few weeks. The dosage they’re testing is about 9 times the OTC dose plus it’s intravenous. So it’s not quite the same as what you can get from the drug store. But it’s the same drug, so taking the OTC could help. If you know someone suffering from Covid, suggest they try it. It certainly has fewer side effects than hydroxychloroquine.
The reason they think it works is that in Wuhan, poorer people who suffered from heartburn had a better survival rate than richer people. Poorer people tended to take the cheaper famotidine, while the richer ones took the more expensive (and more effective) omeprazole (Prilosec). Plus some computer modeling indicates that it may bind to an enzyme that helps the virus replicate.
However, I do not suggest you take it prophylactically. It’s unlikely to keep you from getting Covid. And we don’t want a run on the drug that will keep people who really need it from getting it. (I’m talking to the wind here. Nothing I say is going to stop a run on Pepcid once the word gets out. And the above link showed up on Google News.)
Fuck me. The last thing I want is a freaking run on Pepcid. It has been tough enough to find since Ranitidine based drugs (like Zantac) were removed from shelves.
Me too. Before my reflux/gerd diagnosis I honestly thought I had an allergy to french fries.
There are no foods that don’t activate it now for me. Just some are worse than others. And with food supplies being… hit or miss… I don’t know how I could eat. Tums only work so much.
Two years ago my young son was prescribed omeprazole. After a year he was suffering from malnutrition because there was no acid to break down vitamins and minerals. His new pediatrician said they never should have prescribed it long term even with his condition. He has bad, bad reflux and cyclical vomiting so they switched him to Zantac because it’s much milder. And now they’re pulling that from the shelves so he was switched to famotidine. So far it’s working fine. Bet you anything there won’t be any next month when he needs his prescription refilled. I bet if I go to Walgreens tomorrow there won’t be any.
I use Pepcid occasionally. I agree - DO NOT hoard this, even if you’re a regular user.
TL : DR - It’s also being used experimentally at 9 times the standard dose. That article said that IV famotidine wasn’t used much, and maybe it isn’t where they are, but we used it all the time (okay, as of 10 years ago).
The question is whether the journalists at Science should have written that story, but once that’s out there, appealing to people not to buy it isn’t going to work.
If anyone has a genuine need for it that can’t be satisfied by omeprazole, I think they really should buy what they need before it disappears. It’s still available in local drugstores around here.
Is cimetidine (Tagamet) still on the market? If omeprazole is too strong, it should make a decent substitute for famotidine. It’s less than perfect, but better than nothing.
For those who need the stuff genuinely - I hope you’re successful in getting hold of it!! It’s a very different class of medication than the proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole.
Zantac, Pepcid etc. have some weak antihistamine properties; when I tried it (25+ years back) we actually hoped that my asthma might benefit from that. Didn’t notice any improvement in the asthma, so I guess not - but I wonder if the histamine blocking abilities have anything to do with the potential effect on COVID.
More vaguely-informed rambling: If Prilosec etc. do a better job of blocking acid production, that in itself might increase risk of some ailments; stomach acid neutralizes some pathogens (users of PPIs have more risk of c-diff and campylobacter infections). As in, an acid reducer does less to reduce, well, acid, so there’s more acid to clobber the virus. I wonder if there’s anything to that “just came up with it” wild-assed theory of mine?
I heard about a report years ago that people were more likely to get pneumonia when on omeprazole and it was speculated that this could be because of less acid being available to kill germs. Not sure what happened with that research.
Yes, it is, but be careful if you take it because it has a lot of drug interactions. I STILL can’t believe they made it OTC, nor can I WRT the proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec and Nexium. (I was in school when Prilosec was launched in the early 1990s; it was $6 a capsule even then!)
There’s also nizatidine, which was OTC for a while as Axid AR, but that was withdrawn because it wasn’t used much. By all accounts, for most people it doesn’t work as well and AFAIK has no IV formulation, and this website says that the brand is no longer available in the U.S. but generics may be.
I accidentally kept buying bottles and then losing them so in theory I have another bottle or two floating around because I’m an idiot. … I had to check and I found one of my unopened bottles of 25. Phew. I have probably 10 in an open bottle and maybe another bottle of 25 somewhere and I usually keep an emergency couple pills in my purse. So that gives me a month AT LEAST and that’s reassuring. Hopefully in a month people will stop. I haven’t used prilosec in years but I if I had to I could do one round of that just to buy me time.
When I was nursing a common suggestion was using domperidone to increase milk. I guess it’s a normal side effect. Problem is that it’s not FDA approved so people had to drive to Canada or go to a compounding pharmacy. It’s supposed to be a great antacid. Oh well. I guess if things don’t clear up I’ll be on facebook bartering toilet paper and homemade masks for pepcid.
For anyone looking for a good place to grab some, Dollar General, Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree usually have some generics reasonably priced. Most people will stock up at the big stores and forget these little places.
I’m sorry I didn’t see this earlier, as I was in Costco this morning, and I could have looked on your behalf. During my visit last week, I was in the medicine section for another purpose, and I looked for the ranitidine (Zantac) to confirm my impression that it had been discontinued. Anyway, I saw no ranitidine, but lots of famotidine.
Didn’t check today, though. On the bright side, I have another day off tomorrow. Let me know if you’re having trouble acquiring famotidine, and I’ll use my senior shopper privileges to have a look for you.
