Prilosec Side Effects

[mishele75]

I was diagnosed with H Pylori back in 2003.  I took the antibiotics and the pain cleared up.  After that, my doctor put me on Nexium.  Unfortunately, insurance wouldn't cover it so I switched to Prilosec.  It seemed to do the trick so my doctor just told me to continue with it.  Last year, he sent me for an upper endo to check to see if all was ok.  Everything checked out good.  

Seemingly unrelated, back in 2006, I had my first panic attack.  I couldn't pinpoint what caused it.  I was never really an anxious person.  When I had a second one in late 2006, I went back to my doctor who ran an EKG and an Echo and found that my heart was fine.  That attack seemed to be caused by a strange sensation of my throat closing and difficulty swallowing when it really wasn't.  After the doctor ruled out any heart issues, he suggested that it might be stress.  I've had a few more since then but they haven't been nearly as bad since I now know what they are.  Then earlier this year, I've started noticing some heart palpitations.  I went back to the doctor who did another EKG and found nothing wrong.  The palps aren't constant but don't seem to have any noticable pattern.  I started taking my pulse when I got them and my pulse was normal, not high.  I also started getting very sensitive to light, again, not constantly and with no discernable pattern.  

All that being said, I never put the two together until I did a search for heart palpitations and started finding several sites where people on Prilosec were complaining of the same symptoms.  Has anyone here ever experienced these types of symptoms on Prilosec or any other PPI's?  I just read all of this today so I plan on stopping Prilosec tomorrow but I hear it could take up to 72 hours for it to work out of the system.  

[mishele75]

Thanks for the feedback!  I'll definitely wean my self off slowly.

[CalGal]

Instead of coming off the the meds abruptly, think about coming off of the meds a step at a time over a period of weeks-to-months. There can be a problem with 'rebound' reflux and it can make a person miserable. So please factor that into your plan.

Issues being reported with the use of PPIs and heart/electrical conduction disturbances, and this side-effect is now being noted on the 'side-effect' section of the patient handouts on these medications.