Need further assistance? Please call Member Services at If not used carefully, the 'purple pill' can cause dangerous side-effects and mask serious disease. By Ginger Skinner. January 30, Sharing is Nice Yes, send me a copy of this email. Send We respect your privacy. Oops, we messed up. Try again later. When you shop through retailer links on our site, we may earn affiliate commissions. Learn more. What works best to relieve your heartburn symptoms? Swallow tablets whole with a drink of water.
If you have problems swallowing tablets, you can put them in a glass of water. Stir until the tablets start to break up, then drink straight away. If you have problems swallowing capsules, you can open up esomeprazole capsules and empty the contents into a glass.
Mix with some water and drink straight away. Fill the glass with water again, and drink that as well to make sure there's no medicine left at the bottom of the glass. If your child is under 12 years old, their doctor may prescribe esomeprazole granules which come in sachets.
Empty the granules into a glass and mix with some water, then encourage them to drink it straight away. Sometimes your doctor will increase your dose if it isn't working well enough. Depending on the reason you take esomeprazole, you may take a higher dose to begin with, usually for a month or two.
After this, your doctor may recommend that you take a lower dose. If you have bought the medicine yourself from a pharmacy or supermarket, tell your doctor if you feel no better after taking esomeprazole for 2 weeks.
They may want to do tests to find out what's causing your symptoms or change you to a different medicine. If you take it on prescription, you may only take it for a few weeks or months, depending on your illness. Sometimes your doctor may advise you to take it for longer, even many years. Your doctor may suggest taking esomeprazole only when you have symptoms. This means you won't have to take it every day. Once you feel better, you can stop taking it - often after a few days or weeks.
Taking esomeprazole this way isn't suitable for everyone. Speak to your doctor about what's best for you. Do not take a double dose to make up for a forgotten dose.
If you often forget doses, it may help to set an alarm to remind you. You could also ask your pharmacist for advice on other ways to remember your medicine. It is very unlikely that taking one or two extra doses by accident will cause any problems. However, check with your doctor if you have taken too much and have any of these symptoms:. Most people who take esomeprazole do not have any side effects. If you do get a side effect, it is usually mild and will go away when you stop taking esomeprazole.
Common side effects may happen in more than 1 in people. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if these side effects bother you or don't go away:. Serious side effects happen in less than 1 in 1, people.
Call a doctor straight away if you have:. In rare cases, it's possible to have a serious allergic reaction anaphylaxis to esomeprazole. These are not all the side effects of esomeprazole. For a full list see the leaflet inside your medicines packet. Esomeprazole isn't usually recommended during pregnancy as there's no firm evidence it's safe. A medicine called omeprazole , which is similar to esomeprazole, is safe in pregnancy. However, if you're pregnant, it's always better to try to treat your symptoms without taking a medicine.
Your doctor or midwife may suggest eating smaller meals more often and avoiding fatty and spicy food. They may also suggest raising the head of your bed 10 to 20cm by putting something under your bed or mattress, so that your chest and head are above your waist.
This helps stop stomach acid travelling up towards your throat. If these lifestyle changes don't work, you may be recommended omeprazole to help ease your symptoms. Esomeprazole may get into breast milk, but it's not known whether it harms the baby. A medicine called omeprazole , which is similar to esomeprazole, is safe to take while breastfeeding. Speak to your doctor to discuss what is best for you and your baby. Some medicines can interfere with esomeprazole and make you more likely to have side effects.
Tell your doctor if you're taking these medicines before you start taking esomeprazole :. These are not all the medicines that may not mix well with esomeprazole.
It means, potentially, a predisposition to fractures. The potential associations of high gastrin or low acid associated with PPIs, I think, are probably real. Low magnesium is some kind of idiosyncratic reaction. These patients get an AIN, an acute interstitial nephritis of the kidneys. I believe that this is associated with PPIs.
Vitamin B 12 deficiency has been associated with less acid production. So, my feeling is that the risk needs to be seen in its appropriate context. PracticeUpdate: Are drug interactions often missed?
Or perhaps a patient had a myocardial infarction and is put on baby aspirin for the rest of her life. Is polypharmacy something to be concerned about? Metz: Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the things that we have to do now, every time we see a patient—every single time—is to reconcile their medicines. My whole approach to seeing a patient in the office is totally different now than it used to be. I think some of the potential interactions between PPIs and other drugs are overblown, however.
There was a big scare over the last few years about the potential interactions between Plavix, which is a platelet inhibitor, and PPIs.
A lot of the cardiologists have patients with stents, and have them on aspirin, which is a bleeding risk, and Plavix, which is another bleeding risk. It was felt that some epidemiological data suggested that Plavix efficacy is impeded by PPIs, and there are certain cytochrome P mechanisms and hereditary phenotypes of P that are associated with less effective Plavix in patients who need antiplatelet agents.
I understand why they did it; but, the truth of the matter is that the data has not really borne that out. So, there were many approaches, one was to provide Plavix at one time of the day and the PPI at another time of the day. The FDA then issued a warning about how this was really not a valid way to go. Study: We examined the effect of long-term omeprazole treatment on serum gastrin levels in patients with reflux esophagitis when given either 20 mg daily group 1 or on alternate days group 2.
During the follow-up period, clinical remission was monitored and maintained in all patients in group 1 and in the majority of patients in group 2.
Upon multivariate adjustment for age and duration of treatment, a significantly lower mean serum gastrin level was observed in the alternate-day group as compared with the daily treated group.
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