Over the last few weeks I’ve been waking in the early morning hours with painful heartburn that disrupts my sleep. I know I need to get to the root cause, and think I have an idea about that, but that will take time. Any suggestions for an antiacid that will not have unwanted side effects?
Thanks
Recently I have had trouble with heartburn also. I find it's not what I eat but how much I eat. Try eating light and eat nothing six hours before bedtime.
Thanks Magnus
agreed with others here: try something safe and old-school tested like pepcid OTC; make apt w/gastro and primary care meantime. urgent stuff - get to urgent or walkin treatment clinic or ER. 
best....r- 😎
I get fairly frequent heartburn at various times throughout the day. It doesn’t seem to be related to what I eat, the amount, or when. It may be caused by the daily maintenance dose of sildenafil I take for ED. Heartburn is one of the side effects. I just take OTC Pepcid Complete and that seems to help.
Thanks
I just remembered last night that back around 2000 I regularly got heart burn at night. About the same time I went on a diet to loose 30 pounds. After about 20 pounds the heartburn disappeared. My doc said that was a typical outcome of loosing belly fat. That the extra weight on the belly stimulated the production of acid. Turns out I’ve been living in a seasonal home last 4 1/2 months and I was unable to continue my lap swimming routine so I gained about 10 pounds, all in a pot belly. So I’m dieting again. Guess I’ll try pepto bismol for temporary relief.
Heartburn is inconvenient, but the belly fat is poisonous in a number of more serious ways of course.
Heartburn can happen to anyone for a variety of reasons, but it’s most common in those with substantial stomach fat.
You were rid of it through swimming. Excellent! Now because you can’t swim you’re going to diet instead? I strongly suggest finding another form of exercise. Diets don’t work for long.
Try Nexium (esomeprazole). No prescription is needed. You have take it every day in the morning half an hour before breakfast. I will reduce significantly the acid production in one or 2 weeks. You could also try pepcid but the problem is in that in few weeks it may not be longer effective. My advice is to consult with your primary physician, before starting any medication
Thanks Tango. Your advice is good. It’s just that I hate getting yet another doc appt
Omeprazole, esmoprazole do reduce acid efficiently BUT these meds also cause lowering of bone mineral density as a side effect..so men on ADT have to be careful using these proton pump inhibitors. Keeping the head end of bed raised , avoiding acidic food at night and using a very small dose of Soda bicarb with a glass of water is much less harmful.
When I was taking NSAIDs for my knee, I used omeprazole. It takes a while to kick in, but once it did, I had no problems.
Thank-you TA
It’s my understanding that extended use of omeprazole can lead to bone loss, not good for guys on ADT. Some other anti-acids may do the same. I’m sure you can educate us all a little bit more about this SE.
Gastric acid secretion is needed for absorption of several vitamins and minerals (including calcium, magnesium, iron, and Vitamin B12), so anything that inhibits gastric acid (e.g., antacids, proton pump inhibitors, histamine H2 receptor antagonists), if too high a dose or taken too long, can lead to loss of bone mineral density or other deficiencies. It's certainly not a reason to not use them - the danger of esophageal ulcers from chronic reflux is a bigger danger.
It should be taken as directed for 2 weeks at a time, then a break, then another two week cycle.
Once a year, it's a good idea to monitor serum levels of calcium, iron, magnesium (which are normally included in everyone's standard blood work labs anyway), B12, and bone mineral density on a DEXA scan.
A quick fix for acid causing burning sensation is very simple and it works within 2 to 3 minutes. Take half glass of water and put half teaspoon of Sodium Bicarbonate powder in it.And drink.
Sodium bicarbonate has reaction with Hydrochloric acid converting to Salt and water.
NaHCo3 + HCl = NaCl + H2O + CO2.
My Dad did that for many years for reflux and it is an effective temporary relief for acid reflux. But the OP may need to be scoped. My Dad died of esophageal cancer in his early 80s. Could be early sign of Barrets.
If you do not want to take medications you can relieve your symptoms significantly by elevating the head of your bed about 15 - 20 cm.
I've had serious heartburn problems - even had an angiogram once because of the pain, which turned out to be heartburn. Also have had eosinophilic esophagitis and Barrett's esophagus - even now sometimes food gets stuck getting from the esophagus into the stomach, and I've had a couple of small ulcers (now cleared up). Used to take ranitidine, then Prilosec, but ranitidine has had some contamination issues (don't know if that's still happening) and Prilosec was supposed to be taken only for 14 days, and I'd read some studies about it being associated with cognitive problems. Then I read about cimetidine (Tagamet), one of the older antacid drugs. Works very well for me, and it's very cheap. I take it at night just before bed, when my system needs it most - and there's this possible side-benefit: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
When i was first presceibed zyriga and prednisone my first MO also prescribed prilosec (omeprazole) once per day in morning. Have nor had any heartburn or nausea symptoms.
I just realized it’s probable caused by taking my abiraterone early in the morning. I started doing that a week or so before the hb started. It was convenient to take it during an early morning pee trip to the bathroom cause I didn’t have to time it between meals. Guess I’ll go back to my “after breakfast, before lunch schedule. I strongly suspect that will fix the problem.
Gas x
Check out one of my old post i get a lot of feed back....eventually my reflux got better only use calcium carbonate once in a while
Calcium Carbonate AKA TUMS - I keep a small bottle by the bed
Tums are also a great form of Calcium.
Some great info here....daveasprey.com/what-really-...
Thanks all for replying. I think I have enough info at this point. At present I believe my abiraterone timing is the cause. I should know for certain in a couple days and will post results here. Thanks again for all the info you’ve shared.
I had serious bought of acid reflux or indigestion. A couple of quick easy solutions were to chew peppermint gum. Also I use chewable papaya enzyme which does the trick too.
After years of going through bouts of indigestion and hearing it was stress related, I thought well what about diet?
So one by one I started eliminating food from my diet to isolate. As it turns out wheat was the culprit - any product that has wheat in it and that's a lot of products.
I noticed it first when I stopped eating bread. I still had some issues then I cut out cereal (dog food for humans anyway). Problem gone sort of. Then there was spaghetti night - switched to rice noodles. No issue there now.
Whenever it returns, I look back at my days diet and always find wheat or some heavy wheat component was in there somewhere.
I don't cut it out completely but it's mostly gone from my diet.
So if it's long term, consider cutting out certain foods one at a time for a week or so. If nothing changes, add it back in to your diet and cut something else out.
Good info here:
Good Luck, Good Health and Good humor.
j-o-h-n Tuesday 11/16/2021 7:28 PM EST
Try nexium 20. Can cut them in half, as I do. Use only on as needs basis. I swear by them.
Well it was the abiraterone. Stopped taking it early morning, around 3am, for two days now and the heartburn mostly disappeared.
Thanks to all of you for your kind suggestions and advice!
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