Over the last 6 weeks I began a routine of getting off of taking a Prilosec everyday, and this is how I did it.

To begin with, I have been taking a daily pill for about the last 13 years to combat acid reflux, GERD, stomach pain or whatever you wish to call it.  If I didn’t take a daily pill in the morning, I would get a piercing pain in the middle of the day to the point where I would have to throw up, or it wouldn’t hit me until I went to bed and laid down.  I have tried several other options the last few years because I hated taking it everyday and wanted to find another solution.

I tried the obvious solution of watching what I ate, but that didn’t make a difference.  Yes, some things like spicy foods etc made it worse, but it was still always there whatever I ate.  After searching the web, I tried taking Licorice extract pills and couldn’t last a week.  I tried HCL and that didn’t work either.  I finally found a solution that worked for me and I tried it, and here’s what I did.

I bought myself a pill cutter (cheap device found at the local grocery store for a few dollars) and started by cutting them in 3/4 and 1/4 size.  For the first 2 weeks, I would take the 3/4 sized pill and every 3 days take 3 of the 1/4 sized pills.  Everything seemed to be fine. I had a couple of flare ups, but I supplemented those incidences with Tums.

For the next 3 weeks, I cut the pills in half and took one each day, again supplementing with a Tums a couple of times a week.

For the last week, I have only been taking 1/2 every other day and it’s going great so far.  I am so happy that I don’t have to take these things every day as I know they aren’t good for my overall health. There are long term side effects associated with taking this for years, that I won’t get into here, but you can read some here:

Serious Side Effects of Prilosec

You should contact your doctor immediately or seek emergency medical help if you experience any of the following severe side effects:

• Rash, hives, or itching
• Swelling of the face, throat, tongue, lips, eyes, hands, feet, or lower legs
• Hoarseness
• Breathing or swallowing difficulties
• Extreme fatigue
• Fast, irregular, or pounding heartbeat
• Dizziness or lightheadedness
• Muscles spasms
• Seizures
• Uncontrollable shaking of a part of the body
• Diarrhea with watery stools
• Fever
• Stomach pain

I began this journey after an episode of extreme dizziness while I was out driving for Uber.  Luckily I wasn’t driving at the time, but I was sitting in the shade smoking and started to notice that everything in front of me seemed like it was on large ocean waves, swaying up and down, back and forth.  I barely made it back to the car as I was extremely dizzy.  At first I thought it might have been related to the heat, as it was in the mid 90’s that day, but after researching, I came to the conclusion that the Omeprazole was not allowing vital nutrients to absorb in my body, most importantly, magnesium and B-12.  I ended up laying back in my seat for almost 2 hours before I finally threw up and felt fine enough to drive home.  Luckily my wife was able to stay on the phone with me the entire time, even though she wanted to send an ambulance to me, but I didn’t think that was necessary.

So the basic rundown again is:

Weeks 1-2:  Take 3/4 of a pill

Weeks 3-5: Take 1/2 of a pill

Week 6:  Take 1/2 pill every other day  (I’m planning on continuing this for another week and then try every 3rd day.  I hope to be totally off of it in the next few weeks)

Good luck if you wish to give it a try.  I would love to hear back if this worked for you.