Burning inside

[muckefuck]

monshu had plans to stop by yet another downtown art fair after work, so he told me he was cutting me loose for dinner. The beastly weather dampened my interest in straying far, so I got off the shuttle at Loyola as per usual and returned to SP Kebab on Sheridan. I had a little trouble communicating with the guy up front, but I was very pleased with the wrap I got--nicely charred pork with enough vegetables to make me feel good about my choice. I was impressed enough with the bread to ask him where he got it from and learned that they bake right there in the shop.

It's right next to Pillars, which the Old Man and I haven't gotten around to checking out yet. I was lured in by their prominently-advertised smoothie; by the time I learned that the fruit in it was mostly purée from a box, it was too late. The only thing that went in fresh was a very ripe banana, which dominated; it turned into a banana smoothie with a hint of berry (the peach was completely lost), and that wasn't what I was interested in.

At the time, I knew this was all a little reckless given that I've suddenly decided to try weaning myself off omeprazole. I've long suspected taking daily doses wasn't good for me even though I couldn't find much online which said so. Well, know we've finally got some data in from long-term users and it confirms those suspicions. (Incidentally, I have some choice words for the physician quoted at the end as saying, "If we took 100 people with reflux and got them to rigidly follow the lifestyle recommendations, 90 wouldn’t need any medication. But good luck getting them to do that": fuck you. Yeah, if I never drank alcohol, orange juice, coffee, or black tea again OR ate anything sweeter than a granola bar OR anything more spicy than a pot pie OR anything more greasy than a piece of buttered toast AND always waited at least four hours after dinner before lying down, I wouldn't need any medication. You try that diet, doc, and tell me how long you last--keeping in mind, of course, that it also has to be low sodium AND low cholesterol AND low fat on account of your family history of hypertension and heart disease.)

So I'm going to try doing without my afternoon dose. Honestly, I think it's been good for me in some ways because it really put the kibosh on pre-dinner snacking. But messing up your body's ability to absorb nutrients and medications is no joke; I'd rather run the risk of the occasional ulcer, since those will heal up. Of course, less omeprazole means more TUMS, and I've just learned that too much calcium carbonate can lead to heart irregularities. So many evils, so difficult to sort out the least among them...

Comments

[lhn.livejournal.com]

So far, that's actually less bad than I've been fearing. (Though I probably won't think so if I wind up with C. difficile thanks to those doubled chances. :-) ) It at least sounds as if the hypomagnesia issue should be catchable by blood tests, though I'll have to ask at my next checkup if they're watching it.

Not to say that being a test case for long-term heavy omeprazole use doesn't make me nervous. But as you say, it's all about balancing choice of risks in the face of inadequate information. (They'll sure know a lot more about the relative risks of untreated reflux vs. swallowing handfuls of Tums vs. PPI use by the time it's too late for the information to do me much good. :-) )

And yes, generally my reaction to the finger-wagging part of any of these stories is much the same as yours. Whatever may be theoretically possible in individual cases, leaning heavily on recommendations whose compliance rate is, to a first approximation, nil isn't useful. (Compare with quitting smoking, which is by all accounts really hard, but is at least demonstrably both possible and long-term maintainable for double-digit percentages of the target population. If there's a major diet modification with that kind of compliance rate 5 or 10 years out, I haven't run into the study yet.) It's just a stick to beat people up with.