Digestive health and drug questions are two ever-popular topics in letters to Dr. Myatt and nurse Mark. Here is an example of both questions in one letter:

“K” writes to ask:

Have you ever heard of this? When I take Prevacid, Nexium, Zantac, I beging to burn in the vaginal area within an hour, also ears burn and tongue. Would you call this an allergic reaction? I am going to start carafate and hope it does not do the same thing. I was diagnosed with erosive gastritis.

And Dr. Myatt replies:

Hi K

NO ONE suffers from a Prevacid or Nexium “deficiency.” Regardless of the cause of your “reaction,” you should be “fixing” your GI problems instead of switching to an “alternative band-aid.”

If you haven’t read this, get on board fast – read: http://www.healthbeatnews.com/GastricAcid.htm

In Health,
Dr. Myatt

Nurse Mark comments:

Hmmm… yep, I might call that an “allergic reaction”, or I might use the more “politically correct” terminology of the FDA and Big Pharma and say it was “an adverse event”…

K, if you ever want to give yourself a good scare, read through the sheet called “Prescribing Information” that is supposed to accompany these, or any drug – that is the sheet of tiny print that tells you and your doctor more than you ever wanted to know about the drug. Most people throw these sheets away, but I find them to be entertaining reading…

Healthy, strong gastric acid is so essential to proper digestion and assimilation of nutrients that I cannot understand why any self-respecting doctor would prescribe a drug that is designed to shut down the body’s production of stomach acid! Except maybe for the fact that these “stomach acid blockers” are among the most profitable drugs of our time… Oh, yeah, how could I forget that important fact?!?

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