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In reply to the discussion: The medications that change who we are [View all]Liberal In Texas
(13,534 posts)And to bore you with another: I have had what's called reflux disease for years. It was mostly bothersome overnight and would cause me to wake up with burning in my throat. Also it gave me chest pains which is annoying if you're trying to figure out if you are having a heart attack or not.
About 30 some years ago, my, what they call now, primary care physician (or as I called him Doc Morgan) prescribed Zantac. It was like a miracle drug. Made all the bad stuff go away almost immediately after taking it. It was only by Rx when I started on it and then awhile back, the feds decided that maybe the pharma people could actually make more money selling OTC. So, I have been taking it 2, 3, sometimes 4 times a day. It did the trick.
As you may have guessed the worst thing in the world happened. The bloody stuff apparently produced MDMA a known rocket fuel additive and carcinogen. (And not just the brand name, but every know variant sold.) Not wanting to knowingly take rocket fuel, especially since I had quit smoking over a year before so actually not trying to knowingly ingest any more carcinogens and because every seller on the planet recalled them and pulled them off the shelves, I have been at my wits end trying to figure out a good substitute.
Well nothing has been really good, but a few weeks ago I was listening to Dr. Radio on XM in my car and they were talking about reflux. I'm all ears. The doc was saying his friends in England and Germany are taking this new stuff. He said the brand name was available in the US but you had to get the word "Advance" on the label or it wasn't the same. It was called "Gaviscon Advance" and it worked great with reflux. And so I figured wtf, I'll give it a shot.
The radio doc said it was hard to get in the US. I asked my wife who is a Brit if she might have any secret ways she gets her weird Brit stuff (like Marmite and Fish Paste) out of the UK if she could score me some. In the end I used Amazon and there was one vendor. Bought 3 bottles of pills and the stuff works. One takes it before bedtime and it forms a little barrier on the top of your stomach to keep the reflux from happening.
Since I have been using it, not one case of reflux.
I just wonder why you can't find this at Walgreens or CVS.
Ah the joys of getting elderly.