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Is Your Antacid Making You Sick?

By |2020-09-15T20:38:01-04:00September 15th, 2020|Categories: Gut Health|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Heartburn has been in the news a lot lately — and I’m not talking about the heartburn you get from watchingthe news. All those stories about COVID 19, peaceful protests, looting, and the upcoming presidential election are certainly enough to cause indigestion. But before you reach for that “little purple pill” to relieve your heartburn, consider its potential impact on your overall health.

As highlighted in a number of recent reports, prescription and over-the-counter drugs commonly used to alleviate symptoms associated with heartburn, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), acid reflux, and ulcers, may increase the risk of numerous health conditions, some of which can be fatal. Among these risks are cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and cancer.

Most recently, the news buzzed about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) recall of all prescription and over the counter (OTC) ranitidine medications, commonly known by the brand name Zantac. The FDA discovered a contaminant called N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in some ranitidine products that “increases over time and when stored at higher than room temperatures and may result in consumer exposure to unacceptable levels.” NDMA is a probable human carcinogen (a substance that could cause cancer).

Ranitidine is a histamine-2 (H2) blocker, a class of heartburn medication that’s normally not nearly as harmful as another class of medications commonly used to treat heartburn (I should say commonly overused) — proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). One study of PPIs — Estimates of mortality associated with proton pump inhibitors among US veteranswas published in May of 2019 in the British Medical Journal. In that peer-reviewed study, researchers from the Department of Veterans Affairs-Saint Louis, Saint Louis University, and Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis concluded that taking proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) is associated with a small excess of cause-specific mortality, including death in 45 out of every 1,000 people. Another study published in 2006 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that long-term PPI therapy is associated with an increased risk of hip fracture.

Other potential adverse side effects associated with PPIs include Continue reading…

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – Healing Your Frustrations!

Have you ever been told it’s all in your head? I mean, did you ever have the feeling that when you speak with your doctor, the look on his or her face is saying “you must be making this all up”? 

In my Tampa holistic and functional medicine practice, I regularly see patients who have many chronic symptoms. Symptoms that on the surface are seemingly unrelated and bizarrely appear to have no known cause. Many of these patients have been diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or exhibit multiple symptoms in multiple systems of the body. It appears as if they have some type of autoimmune condition(s). Although, some have been diagnosed with a specific autoimmune condition, many elude diagnosis. The doctor often suggesting “let’s retest in a few months or a year, it looks autoimmune, but I don’t see anything in your labs yet”. 

Case Study 

A forty year old female administrator recently presented with complaints of memory loss, lack of motivation and anxiety, all brain based symptoms, ok that fits. She explained to me that she has low sex drive, stomach pain, rashes that come and go and is always tired. When, I let her continue to state her concerns, “I also have cramps in my legs and I wake up stiff, my joints hurt, and at times I find it difficult to breathe. I sleep well enough but wake up tired.” There was more! “I have tingling in my hands and I feel weak”. This is suddenly sounding way more complex! 

The patient went on to tell me about her  Continue reading…

Five Gastroenterologists And Not One Stool Test

I recently had a patient whom spent twenty years with chronic GI complaints, visiting greater than five gastrointestinal specialists. In that span of time, not one of the GI specialists ordered a stool test. I found that surprising and too common. The patient found it frustrating!

Can you imagine having a gut issue for over twenty years and no one thought to perform a stool test?

This particular patient had already been through a series of tests including endoscopy, colonoscopy and abdominal sonogram, due to abdominal pain, reflux symptoms and inconsistent bowels ranging from hard or dry stools to watery diarrhea. To be fair, the tests she  had were able to screen for a variety of conditions including celiac, h-pylori infection, gastritis, polyps, colon cancer, and esophagitis to name a few.

However, the patient was told there was no pathology (this basically means your not dying and we can’t find what’s wrong, so you must be ok). The patient was happy to hear she had no pathologies and unhappy with the proposed solution. She was offered  prescription Bentyl and after trying it for several months was unsatisfied with the results.

In my Tampa clinic I use a few different labs to test for GI problems. One such test is the  Continue reading…