how to stop ppi without rebound symptoms?

are you symptoms free now? what kind of diet did you did? are you eating normal now? sorry for too many questions but want to know what worked for others. this is to stressful. did ppi worked for you when you took them? what were you symptoms before you started ppi's?

Kind of free symptoms, apart a cough and feeling the sensation of the mucus in my throat I have no other symptoms anymore. I was bloated, I actually started having pain in my stomach only AFTER being on PPIs and they never really helped me or improved my situation, they made it worse. So it was a vicious circle- i thought i have a problem and consistently kept changing the type of the PPI looking for the one that would work and increasing the dosage...unfortunately it just made me more sick. Basically they never checked my stomach acidity and apparently i had a normal aciditiy, it was the sphincter that was not closeing well due to stress. so by using the PPIs I started not digesting, my vitamin B and D levels dropped, I lost weight and my iron/ferritin and vitamin B levels never got back to normal- i am on Iron injections and vit B supplements since 5 years. It took me a long time - about a year to recover from the harm of PPIs that was more than all my initial issues..also willpower needed to keep up wiht the diet.but eventually i live without thinking of it...

THings I did to recover - for 3 months - no gluten, no lactose, no red meat, no raw fruit and veg, no pulses - as those are the hardest to digest. I was eating boiled/steamed vegitables and fruits, rice cakes, honey and white organic meat- chicken, turkey, rabbit...really a poor diet, but made miracles. I finally started feeling better. 9 more months a diet with no gluten and no lactose, other stuff i would introduce but slowly...loads of water and not sitting or lieing right after you've eaten, a walk after lunch or dinner is recommended - after all silent reflux is also a mechanical issue thus we need to stay vertically.

MOre- I went to see a homeopath, so they gave me some granules- not sure if that did anything, but the diet they gave me mentioned above made miracles believe me. After I have tried acupuncture - very helpful for my sleep issues-as i was sleeping in a half seated position for almost a year, and had a back and neck pain, chest pain and a very tense diaphragm. my digestion got better with 10 sessions of acupuncture. you will need to find a good one though, i have tried some others in another city, it never worked as my first time...

then i went to see an osteopath - it did a miracle. they work on the tense diaphragm and this is very helpful. More i keep doing yoga and breathing exercises - which helps a lot. When i stop i feel that i am sleeping worse and sometimes i feel discomfort in my chest.

And one big advice that helped me a lot- don't think it is for good- I know it is very discouraging and stressful when you are in such a discomfort and the mainstream doctors keep on suggesting invasive stuff telling that otherwise it won't go away and will be part of your life...the day my homeopath who is also a A&C surgeon told me not to worry as it is possible to get over it, my symptoms started getting better as i was less stressed and worried about it, or in other words- less desperate. It was the first time i slept 6 hours in a row after a year of terrible fragmented sleep due to reflux and worries...

Good luck with it! If i did it - and it was quite dramatic for me as I even stopped working and going out from home - you can do it too.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! i am having the same issue as you had. i think is stress and anxiety what is causing all this. i had esophageal memometry and they said my lower sphinter is not closing and i think it is due to stress as well. and i am in the same bout ppi are not working been on them 4 months and my sore throat issues got worse. did you had a sour taste in your month as well?

oh i did, sore throat, chronic post-nasal drip/sinusitis, bloating, intestinal issues, very fragmented sleep-which was one of my worst symptoms, shortness of breath, pain in the chest, tension on the face and in the chest. i cannot recall ALL the issues caused by that medication as they were too many including low blood pressure, and terrible levels of vitamins and minerals bound to the fact that I would not digest properly because of artificially lowered acidity levels... also i lost lots of weight thanks to PPis...my initial symptoms were not as bad, typical for silent reflux- just sensation of something stuck in my throat and bad sleep, but i would digest well... four months of PPIs is reasonable time to give it a chance to try PPIs...if it is not helping try to get off them and try the diet and lots of liquids to flash out acidity. four months is not a long period and it should not be a difficult to stop taking antiacids. don't worry about it, just consult someone who knows your particular medication and knows how to reduce the dosage. i was on them twice longer than you, I reduced the dosage by one third every week...so in your case should be pretty much the same or even faster. basically, i had normal/low acidity and my issue was rather mechanical(sphincter not closing properly) was due to stress/psychosomatic issues, and not the stomach acidity...by reducing acidity my symptoms got much much worse. they never really checked my acidity levels when they did gastroscopy.. i wish I would have trusted my body response rather than following the doctor who would insist on PPIs and I wish I would have stopped much earlier ...trust your body would be my advice and find a specialist that would listen to you and to your body responses rather than just following a medical protocol.

forgot to tell you - apart the diet i would take a silicea minerals before going to bed for two-three weeks instead of a gaviscone. also what would soothe my stomach would be drinking green clay water- not the clay, but just the water twice per day early in the momrning and before bed. basically, you just mix a spoon of (a wooden or plastic spoon, not a metal) clay and a glass of water, leave it for 12 hours, the clay sits on the bottom, you drink the water- it tastes nothing. I would buy a Sicilian clay, but you can get it in the UK too, somthing like bentonite clay or just drinking clay...

That's interesting Sonya, I'm wondering if my spinchter is the same, how did you get that diagnosis? PPIs made things worse for me too but now I'm off them I'm having acid rebound. Trying ranitidine and gaviscon to get over the damage made by the ppis.

did you did the low acid diet as well and no spicy food?

Have you checked the acidity level? IN my case they never did, they just confirmed the fact that my spinchter would not close properly, hence I was a subject for reflux diagnosis. Nobody ever told me about checking the acidity, until I started feeling really much worse after 8 months of ppis...this is when i did another gastroscopy asking specifically to check the levels of acidity. and yes it was too low...so it took me a year of a very neutral diet to fix the acidity level. try drinking lots of water, try out also aloe water and the clay water to sooth the stomach and esophagus walls, and avoid food that is hard to digest such as gluten , dairy, red meat, coffee, chocolate, raw veg (unfortunately even if this is a superhealthy, still hard to digest...so I was on steamed and baked fruit and veg)...even if you are not allergic to these foods, still you give your system a holiday. it took me 3 months of rigid diet to feel an immense improvement. i had rebound effect 10 days after stopping ppis, but the payoff later on was much more...it is individual, so just listen to your body. my experience and those of some people I know who stopped ppis shows that even those people with high acidity need ppis and the medication you mentioned if they are not keeping a proper diet.

Sonya, you said you had rebound effect 10 days after stopping ppi. how long did the rebound last? what were your symptoms? i reduce the dose of the ppi a few days ago and i think i am starting to have a rebound i have a sour stomach, heartburn and feel nauseous i also have a headache.

i reduced it gradually. it took me several weeks. when i decreased the dosage it was still okay, but then after I had quit them for 10 days I had a sour throat, heartburn, and the worst symptom was bloating - it felt as if my stomach could not figure out how to deal with the food. so had to have really poor diet for two weeks - white rice, steamed potatoes and still it felt as if i was eating stones...that heavy. Another symptom I had was I could not get proper rest/sleep as my chest was so tense...I did not have nausea though. But in general I felt that I was doing much better than when I was on ppis...so maybe it is worth considering the dosage reduction, like taking off less per weeks and doing more gradually?

how long did it took for the sour throat, heartburn and all your rebound sysmptoms to get better?

Thanks for your reply Sonia. I went to see a specialist privately as I was going around in circles with my GP. The gastroenterologist believes I should have never been put on ppis as he doesn't think it's an acidity issue. He believes my esophagus may be hyper-sensitive due to nerve pain from a virus I had in December. He's referring me for an ultrasound to check my gall bladder and a barium swallow to see if I suffer from esophageal spasms. If these tests don't show anything then he said my PH levels can be checked. He agreed that I had bad side effects from the ppis and that I have been suffering from acid rebound. The GP was not supportive and kept telling me I was just anxious. Going to see a specialist was the best decision I made. GPs just throw drugs at you without investigating the underlying cause. I went from being a healthy individual to being off work for 6 weeks and having to see a psychologist, all because the ppis had such a bad effect on me. After 2 weeks off lansoprazle I have started to sleep and eat better and hardly taking any peptac now. I need to put all this behind me now but I will be very wary of taking any other medication handed out by my GP.

Hi Laura, your story is very similar to mine - I was 8 months on ppis as my gp would insist...and yes, me too took off work for couple of months...once i went to see other specialists privately things looked differently...it took me a full year with a diet to recover fully from the side effects of ppis...they made more damage than helped in other words. well done that you did not wait as long as i did...one thing that came to my mind when i read about your difficulties to swallow is the thyroid infection I got a year after i quit the ppis and thought i was doing well. as a side effect of the whole thing, i got weak in that area and when i got a standard flu, the virus got into my thyroid - this was difficult to identify as i had a neck pain, sore throat, i could not touch my throat, my arms started 'pulling' and aching and i was on blended baby food + heavy sweating and heart palpitations and my period would not come on time...i thought it was throat spasm and something rather muscular or even psychological (anxiety) until we checked the thyroid hormone levels. all this lasted for two months starting gradually ending with really strong symptoms... luckily i did not follow my gp's advice to take hormones, i found a website (i think it was nhs and i know it is not the best thing to do but it was the only place where they would describe my exact symptoms including pain in my arms...) and they would describe the throat pain and swallowing issues as a sign of thyroides - thyroid infection not the disease. It took me three days of ibuprofen to fix it...as crazy as it sounds. and it never came back. what you have been told regarding the infection in throat sounds sensible to me. try to do all check-up and speak to the specialist you found that seems to have a better understanding than your gp.

HI SONYA,

i live in the USA, where can i get clay water. does they sell it on stores or do i have to make it my own.

Hi Maria, How is it going? Have you managed to reduce the dosage without rebound symptoms? to make the clay water you will need to buy just some green clay or bentonite clay, i guess in any organic store or now days even in pharmacies. Once you get it, make sure you use a wooden or plastic spoon. So you will need to add one spoon of clay to one glass of water (I was using a bottled water) every morning , leave it the whole day until the evening. By the end of the day the clay sits in the bottom and the the water clears itself. You drink the water and not the clay before going to bed -this is soothing the stomach and helps to regulate the reflux symptoms throughout the night. It has no taste. You prepare the glass of water with a spoon of clay in the evening , leave it overnight and drink it first thing in the morning. Hope this helps! good luck!

yes, i reduce the dose and was able to stop but my symptoms can back after a dose of antibiotics i took 2weeks ago for an infection in my intestines. now my stomach is a mess. alot of heartburn and stomach pain and sore throat. i don't want to go back to ppi. have you tried probiotics? some told me o should take some to rebalance my stomach from the antibiotics.

i did not have experience with antibiotics as I try to avoid them so far...but I 've heard that you will need to get probiotics/prebiotics (honey .). typically my gp says to eat plain yogurt. the other thing i've heard that helps is spirulina ...

hi sonya, have a question did you got a sour stomach as well? lately i been getting a sour stomach along with a bitter taste in my mouth. not sure these are acid reflux symptoms.

sonya, have a question for you, i now you said it took a long time to recover from ppi. did you had intestinal issues, like loose stools, and/or constipation. i been dealing with loose stools and stomach pain every morning and kind up constipated during the day since i stopped ppi. did you remembered having stomach pain as well kind up like hunger pains when skipping a meal.

Hi Maria, so are you ppi free now I understand? well done! bitter taste and soar stomach are signs of acid reflux, but i guess you'll get improvement with time if you keep a diet. as for the stool issue, I recall you took some antibiotics few months ago right? I suppose that can be one of the reasons why you're getting loose stools and constipation. I did not have loose stool on regular basis, only sometimes, but i suppose it is rather an intestine issue than acid reflux. In my case, i had some intestine issue as well (usually they come hand in hand with acid reflux) and had to undergo a pro-biotic treatment. so it had three stages- first for one week they gave me the bacteria that would clear up all the bad ones in the intestine, second week it was a pre-bitoic that was helping the good bacteria in my gut, and third week we introduced the good bacteria. but you need to see a doctor or a chemist who can advise you what exactyl and in what order to take. after a month of this i hardly ever get intestine issues.

yes, i stopped ppi two months ago since they never helped. and yes i took antibiotics for SIBO( small intestinal bacteria overgrow) but after antibitics my intestine issue started looses tools every morning with stomach pain like hunger pains. can't skip a meal because i get stomach pain. i have tried many probiotics but i get gassy and bloated with them. which probiotic did u took? when u said they gave u bacteria to clear up the bad one, do u mean a probiotic or antibiotic?