Before you take another OTC heartburn pill, learn some urgent information about what’s not on the package

Urgent warning: Read this before you take one more OTC heartburn pill

We all do it. Your shoulder is sore or your stomach’s acting up. So you run into Walgreens and grab something off the shelf. Then, without a second thought, you pop the pill…sometimes right in the car or before you leave the store!

Even with everything we know about them, OTC drugs seem somehow safer. They don’t have that ten-page insert full of cautions and side effects. And you don’t have to sign the pharmacy screen saying your pharmacist told you about all those warnings.

But these drugs are far from safe. Especially if they once required a prescription.

The industry calls that the “Rx to OTC switch.”

But for us, it’s more like a “bait-and-switch” — they bait us into thinking it’s safer by switching the packaging and the shelf it’s on.

Don’t fall for it.

Because something is missing from those OTC drugs. Something important. And that’s especially true for that class of heartburn drugs called proton pump inhibitors, or PPIs.

The dangerous heartburn habit

Right now there are three PPIs that have made “the switch” — Prilosec, Zegerid and Prevacid. And coming this year, I expect Nexium will join the ranks.

When your doctor writes you a prescription for a PPI, you know what comes with it. The bag is filled with pages and pages of warnings.

And for PPIs those warnings can be dire…including increased risk of hip, wrist and spine (!) fractures.

But when that very same product goes OTC suddenly the warnings go out the window. Or rather through the loophole.

You see, the OTC version is the same drug, but it’s only available in the lower dose pill. So the FDA came up with an easy way to let Big Pharma off the hook.

And here’s what they’re counting on:

The directions say to take only one pill for no more than 14 days.

Come on…we’re all adults here.

Everyone knows — including the FDA — that folks are popping them like candy. And for much longer than two weeks!

And that’s when they start to get really dangerous.

This was one of the most outrageous examples I’ve seen of the FDA playing nice with its Big Pharma cronies.

I’m (not) warning you

Instead of deciding these Rx-to-OTC heartburn drugs could keep this warning off, the FDA should have made the pharmaceutical companies put it in big, bold letters.

So here’s what you WON’T be reading on that Prilosec, Zegerid, Prevacid, and soon to be Nexium OTC package.

• Using these drugs can increase your risk of hip, wrist and spine fractures.
• The risk increases the longer you use them, with those taking them for one year or more at the greatest risk.
• Taking a higher dose, even for under a year, also increases the chance of a fracture.
• The danger also increases if you have other risk factors for broken bones and are over 50.

The FDA’s last comment about those warnings — the ones they originally said were so important — is that they didn’t need to be on the packaging because the drugs are only “intended” to be taken at the dose of one pill a day for 14 days. And that’s not to be repeated more than three times a year!

Really? Give me a break. If that’s true then why do these brands have a mega 42-pill size? And why in the world would Prevacid have a “perks program,” where you get “rewards with every purchase?”

Sources
“Possible increased risk of fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine with the use of proton pump inhibitors” FDA Drug Safety Communication, fda.gov