| Re: Can you ever stop PPI once you are on it?
Who said PPIs can cause cancer? Don't believe the homeopaths trying to sell you their equally unreliable/unpredictable wares. At the very least, I don't think PPIs have been around long enough to really know about cancers; so maybe there is yet some risk.
You need to be on PPIs (at least most people do) if you have true GERD (the DISEASE) because you cannot let acid eat away at your esophagus/throat. Eventually you'd get more erosions which can also possibly lead to cancer.
Sounds to me as if we have to be precise about what "acid-reflux" DISEASE is (GERD or LPRD).
GERD/LPRD apparently are basically because a sphincter isn't working right. There are no medicines or anything else, apparently, which fix the sphincter (surgery is iffy). Hence, the PPIs are really only helping the SYMPTOM of acid reflux, not the disease - which is really "sphincter disease", if you ask me.
Therefore, since you didn't fix the sphincter which is the real problem, you could have to take PPIs constantly forever (although some do stop it, then start it again, etc) to minimize refluxed acid eroding your upper tracts.
It should be noted that acid reflux can be a mere symptom of other problems not the sphincter; hence if those problems are fixed, the PPIs might be stopped.
Last edited by Ol'Line Rebel; 06-06-2006 at 07:15 AM.
| 
Linear Mode
