[raybbr]

ping

[HOTTIEBOY]

I take Nexium and I can tell you that it is a miracle drug.

I don't care what the side affects are. I don't have anymore problems with heartburn and I and convinced that my Pops would still be alive, had he had Nexium in his time.

He died from esophageal cancer ~ caused by erosion from acid.

[flashbunny]

damnit, we're all gonna die. Again.

[pgkdan]

I'm taking Prilosec now and would rather break both hips than go without. If I'm not taking my little purple pill everyday I am simply disabled by heartburn pain. I get heartburn when I drink a glass of water.

[Snoopers-868th]

I always thought heartburn was a symptom not a disease. Silly me, a pill is always better and how much does medicine really cure anyway. Seems that pills only mask since you can never go off of them. Must be it is good for capitalism.

[Think free or die]

This one worries me. My husband has been taking one of these meds for a year or so now. He's also been on crutches for the past 3 months - maybe coincidence, maybe not. Initially he was diagnosed with osteonecrosis of the knee (literally death of the bone) and told that he had a 10% chance of healing if he stayed off it for 6-8 weeks. The alternative was likely to be total knee replacement. I can tell you, he was in excruciating pain and not looking forward to the first of quite possibly several artificial joints at the ripe old age of 50.

We've since had a second opinion, and the diagnosis was changed to bone marrow edema. His most recent MRI's show improvement, and we're very grateful that he will probably heal, albeit over a year or so. We've been trying to figure out how he managed to get into this condition, and the best we can come up with is that he fell on it in the spring and that it has slowly (largely imperceptibly) deteriorated to the point where he couldn't walk on it by mid-September. This is pretty distressing, since he had no warning of such a severe injury. This lastest news about the heartburn meds really makes me wonder whether the normal healing process of the bone was impaired by his heartburn meds. It would go a long way to explaining this stealth injury.

Living with a spouse with GERD gives me an indirect appreciation of heartburn pain. It's no picnic. However, considering what he has endured in pain and immobility in recent months, I doubt he'd trade heartburn relief for widespread joint problems.