Today is day 3 of tapering off omeprazole. I’ve cut my dose in half and am at 20mg. And so far, I have not detected any rebound acid. Apparently when you quit a PPI, your stomach begins to make double plus extra acid. My doc prescribed me an H2 blocker to treat the rebound acid. Great. An antacid for my antacid.
That’s what this is starting to feel like. We take a medication that has a side effect that you then take another medication which also has a side effect and so on and so on….
Anyways, so I’m on 20mg now. I think that’s the standard dose. And the 40mg I’ve been taking for six freakin’ years is considered a high dose.
I’ve continued to peruse information on the drug and whether or not it is linked to osteoporosis. Came across this blurb on the Mayo Clinic site:
This medicine may increase your risk of having fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine. This is more likely if you are 50 years of age and older, if you receive high doses of this medicine, or use it for one year or more.
Any one of those three factors makes it more likely, and I have ALL THREE. Yikes man.
I also notice on an FDA site:
Long-term and multiple daily dose PPI therapy may be associated with an increased risk for osteoporosis-related fractures of the hip, wrist or spine.
There’s the word right there. Osteoporosis. And yet my doctor says there currently is no data supporting a correlation of omeprazole and bone density. I’m going to have to figure it out for myself.
