HEARTBURN

By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy

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The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.

One of the pharmacy’s technicians grew a huge patch of jalapeno peppers. I love hot, spicy food. Hot food doesn’t always love me. Some times it gives me heart burn. You know that uncomfortable burning feeling behind your breast bone. What can be done to quench the fire?

Firstly, symptoms of heartburn happen to virtually everyone at some point in their life. If heart burn symptoms are infrequent and don’t last long they are not associated with an increase risk of serious disease. There are some warning flags for when you should see your doctor: severe abdominal pain, pain on the side of your abdomen that persists in one spot, unexplained weight loss of more than 7 lbs in the past six months, new feelings of shortness of breath or chronic tiredness, difficult or painful swallowing, persistent vomiting, coughing up blood, or black tarry stools.

So how can we prevent heartburn. Big meals can lead to heart burn, so let’s cancel Christmas! Well, cancelling Christmas would work, but wouldn’t be very unpopular. So instead try eating smaller more frequent meals, eat low fat foods with lots of fiber, reduce alcohol consumption, avoid lying down right after meals, and lose some weight. Well, if you’re like me over Christmas I eat huge meals with lots of fat, drink alcohol and coffee and then immediately lie down on the couch (and just forget about losing weight over the holidays). Okay, maybe prevention is harder than we thought. What about treating the heartburn once it has started?

Without a prescription, we have antacids and H2 receptor blockers. Antacids with names like Tums, Maalox, Mylanta, Rolaids, Diovan etc all work on mild heart burn. They go into your stomach and neutralize stomach acid. So you feel relief quite quickly, but the relief may not last very long. If you find one you like, use it. There are a couple of cautions, though. If you need antacids more than 3 times a week, or have been using them longer than 6 months in a row, see your doctor. The other problem can be different medications. Antacids bind up other medications that are in the stomach at the same time. If you are on prescription medications, ask you pharmacist if they are safe to take with antacids.

H2 receptor blockers have names like cimetidine, ranitidine, or famotidine. H2 receptor blockers go to a special histamine receptor and prevent them from getting turned on. This stops the stomach from making as much acid. They are reasonably fast and last a long time. They are quite safe and you can usually get relief from 1 or 2 pills in a day. In fact, until recently 150 mg of ranitidine used to be available only by prescription. Now you can buy it over the counter.

As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.