So I finally went to see my doctor last week. He had been “my” doctor for a couple of years, but I had never met him until then. My asthma was bad as it always is in early June, and I also had come to the conclusion that my gastroesophagul reflux (GERD) was out of control. I realized I was taking Tums pretty much every day, and I had to take Tums AND over the counter Pepcid if I wanted to sleep through the night. Between the asthma and the GERD I wasn’t getting enough sleep.
He prescribed a new inhaler for my asthma, and Zantac (Ranitidine) for the GERD, one pill twice a day.
Oh.
My.
God.
What a difference. I went from near-constant heartburn to none. At all. In a whole week. I can’t remember the last time I went a week with no symptoms at all, it was certainly more than three years ago, before my son was born.
The GERD wasn’t always this bad, but I remember having some symptoms as far back as I CAN remember. I am apparently the only person in my family that has it, because my parents never had me see a doctor for it…I think they didn’t believe me/didn’t understand when I said I had what I thought was heartburn.
The real interesting part is I have decided to take a more active approach in managing my asthma, which isn’t usually severe but I am wary of the long term effects of the inflammation it causes. In that vein, I had begun to suspect my GERD was triggering my asthma at times. My doctor confirmed that this does indeed seem to be the case for some people, so by treating the GERD we are killing two birds with one stone.
Regardless, I can eat like a normal person, lie down and go to bed, and know I won’t wake up in agony or gasping for breath. Hooray!
Congrats.
I can’t believe it took this long for someone to suggest an H2 receptor antagonist, especially with the asthma (histamine is histamine, up to a point).
GORD (Oesophagus here) puts you at higher risk of oesophageal cancer, and should be treated promptly if symptoms are severe.
There is anecdotal evidence (but not experimental) that Ranitidine and Cimetidine may be of use in psoriasis too, here’s hoping that comes to something.
Don’t be too hard on my health care providers…I am a rotten patient. Now that I am older with a kid I am diligently trying to actively manage these various maladies, rather than live in denial which I had been up to now.
I love ZANTAC! I have always had indigestion from tomatoes, peppers and onions. Not a big deal, but enough to avoid them. I have hives and Doc put me on Zantac for the antihistamine properties. Now I can have pizza WITH sauces and peppers and onions. And no pain! Woo Hoo!
(Hate having hives, but at least something good came out of it!)
People worried that Zantac may have changed their lives for the worse have some cause to relax.
A Zantac update: the federal judge overseeing lawsuits against Zantac makers that alleged high levels of the carcinogen NDMA in Zantac pills has excluded “expert” witness opinions in the case, effectively dismissing around 50,000 lawsuits.
“…the FDA found Valisure’s lab equipment created NDMA. It gets worse, as Judge Rosenberg details. Valisure heated the ranitidine to 266 degrees Fahrenheit—well above the roughly 98 degree temperature found in the human body—to achieve its test result of 3,000,000 ng.”
“When Valisure tested ranitidine at 98 degrees, it found no NDMA. The extremely high temperature may have caused ranitidine to degrade into NDMA. Valisure also tested ranitidine’s reaction with salt in an artificial stomach, which resulted in NDMA levels exceeding 300,000 ng. But the enormous levels of salt in the test might alone have been enough to kill someone.”
The decision doesn’t affect tens of thousands of lawsuits against Zantac manufacturers still percolating through state courts.