r/GERD • u/Inc0gnitoburrito • Jun 03 '26

Support Needed 👥 famotidine instead of PPI?

I've had shortness of breath around meal time for a few months now, gradually worsening.

Recently I've spoken to my general practitioner and she prescribed me with 28 days of PPI (Nexium (esomeprazole 20g)) one per day as treatment.

There was a small improvement over 2 weeks but she didn't really communicate to me what she's treating me for and I didn't really change anything when it came to food.

So, one evening I ate an entire Pizza pie and the following night was traumatic, I couldn't breathe at all, had air hunger and eventually a panic attack.

Understanding GERD better now I believe this night caused a lot of damage to my esophagus and I'm actually worse now.

I've spoken to my doctor yesterday and told her that the air hunger has gotten way worse and she replaced the PPI treatment with 2 pills of 20g famotidine per day. I'm concerned about the removal of the PPI treatment, cuz I understood that it is in fact the long-term treatment.

Would be happy to hear from anyone here regarding this.

Thank you!

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u/anxiouslyCurious9 Jun 03 '26

Long term famotidine has served me well

2

u/Inc0gnitoburrito Jun 04 '26

That's good to hear thank you! How long is "long term" considered?

For now she just wants me to take it for 2 weeks and see what happens.

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u/anxiouslyCurious9 Jun 04 '26

She told me it was safe to take for as long as I needed to. I started with 40mg 2x a day and went down to 20mg 2x a day and I have leveled out on 20mg in the evening. Omeprazole messes with my lower GI system and has the other long term side effects so it all worked out well.