Do certain GERD drugs bring on migraines?

Over the past few months I have been taking different medications for gastritis and I recall clearly, about 10 minutes after taking Protonix my aura/migraine started. I had a similar situation about a month prior so I am wondering if anyone else had a similar situation..Thanks

common side effect is headache with a lot of GERD meds.

protonix medline

i take aciphex daily for 10 years, and i think it does give me a headache.

i'd rather have a stomach that feels better with a headache than the oppositte.

My doctor gave me aciphex but I am afraid to take it because of the terrible side effects. I stick with otc zantac and have not had any bad side effects, especially headaches.

I currently take omeprazole/prilosec otc and sometimes zantac also if the otc isn't working, with propanalol and amitryptaline. I originally took protonix because it was more effective then the otcs, but my insurance stopped covering it so otc was the only affordable option.

The problem is I'm not sure if I'm getting migraines from this combination or not because I get them every day or two. I was diagnosed with gerds a couple years ago, and didn't show any signs of a problem with protonix + propanalol together until a couple months later. I asked my doctor if I could try going off of it to see if the combo was the problem, but he said it might be better to raise the dosage of propanalol instead since I am only on 40mg and it helped for a couple months. I guess its possible/safe according to him to go as high as 120mg. I'm scheduled to 'try it' after my next appointment where we discuss the results of adding amitryptaline.

If anything, I would say I'm currently an example of what not to mix together because I'm having a really difficult time lately. I just hope my doctor knows what he is doing. I'm only still with him because he came recommended by a good friend of mine. Just be careful and particularly watchful of any symptoms that arise around 4-6 weeks. My doctor warned me that might be how long it would take, and the worst of it is hitting me right in that timeframe.

Thanks for the info. I am almost positive my migraine came about because of the protonix. It wasn't even 10 minutes after i took it that my vision auras came on and then the rest of the day was pretty much shot.
I looked up patient ratings and side effects and quite a few people noted visual problems, migraines, headaches, ect.. so I am staying away from it. Is aciphex good? Now the zantac is doing well for the gastritis so I am going to stick with it even though I feel drugged up and drunk on it sometimes, it is still better than a migraine.

I took Aciphex for three years, I think. My neuro asked me to go off of it and see if my migraines improved. They did. Now I take Tagment and something else in prescription strenght. I traded my once a day pill for one that is twice a day and one that is four times a day. But fewer migraines.

My son also gets headaches from that class of drugs including OTC Prilosec.

My GP had never heard of this side effect when he asked why I switched meds.

Another benefit is I have a lot less gas than I did on the Aciphex.

I take Protonix (pantoprazole) in the morning and Prilosec OTC (omeprazole) in the evening. I don't really see any change in the migraines as a result of either of these drugs.

I've taken Protonix for 1-1/2 years and Prilosec OTC off and on for several years, but just started it again about a month ago (due to the stomach issues I suffered while on amitriptyline).

Becky

I went through all the acid blocker type meds for ulcers. After a year of hell taking them I found out how to cure peptic ulcers and did. They have never been back. Acid reflux happens from either a malfunctioning cardiac sphincter or NOT ENOUGH stomach acid.

Our cardiac sphincter is the valve at the bottom of our esophagus that is supposed to keep stomach acids and food from coming up. But it's acid sensitive, the more acid it senses the tighter it constricts. If your stomach acid is too low it relaxes and lets that small amount of acid into the esophagus. That equates to bad burning (ie heartburn) since it's right next to our heart thus the name "cardiac" sphincter.

I every so often get that when in bed. Being horizontal allows it to happen much more. I get up and drink a 1/2 oz of apple cider vinegar with a couple oz of water as a chaser. It's gone before I get back to the bed.

It seems counter intuitive but it has worked every time for me. Concentrated lemon juice also works well.

That little bit of acid hitting the cardiac sphincter makes it slam shut. But keep in mind doing that does not support your doctor or pharmaceutical co. Don't be shocked that they don't tell you that or even agree with it. it doesn't matter, anyone can try it and see for themselves.

Yes you can take an antacid and completely neutralize ALL your stomach acid but then you get to deal with undigested food traveling 30+ feet through your small intestine.

I had no idea what Gerds was so I googled.
I know now why I have kept every test result for the past ten years or so.
Have dragged out results from 2006 of Upper gI panendoscopy and long colonoscopy.
So to whoever is clever, is this gerds?

"Some fragments of spuamous mucosa show changes in keeping with reflux oesophagitis including basal hyperplasia, elongation of papillae, intercellular oedema and small numbers of intraepithelial eosinophils........
Summary: Changes in Keeping with reflux oesophagitis."

Symptoms: Pain in centre of chest and neausea

Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease. Gastric acid leaking or squeezing past the cardiac sphincter into the esophagus.




I found a pic of the sphincter with acid leaking past it and the burnt/irritated esophageal tissue.

hmm,

first time i've heard of the LES being called a cardiac sphincter....wow.

a lot of docs will refer to chest pain caused by cardiac issues as like "heartburn." heartburn, does indeed feel like heartburn. a heart attack doesn't feel like GERD or acid in the esophagus. i've had the opportunity to feel both.

some chest pain that is cardiac in nature can feel like a GI issue--docs need to carefully diagnose, and it can bump between cardiologists and gastroenterologists. the difficult situation--what if the patient has both? tough thing to tease out.

i do take Aciphex 1-2x a day and it has done well. as needed, i take 300mg ranitidine.

Back when I worked as an EMT I remember an ER doc that had an esophagitis episode one night. He went to the ER he works at pretty sure he was having a heart attack. It wasn't but that shows that even when it happens to a doc it can be hard for them to tell the difference.

Then how many times has someone had an actual heart attack but delayed treatment thinking it was indigestion.

Brent,

That's the difficult part--making an accurate diagnosis. I'm sure more than one person has been denied cardiac care for chest pain that docs thought it was heart burn or reflux. I know that was the case for my mom for several years.

Heart disease can present differently. You do not necessarily have to have (sorry for the wording) abnormal EKGs (they are off 40% of the time to begin with) or changes in some standard enzyme studies.

Some docs rush a GI cocktail to calm a stomach which can yield a placebo effect. A coronary artery spasm feels like a strong squeeze and shortness of breath. From having enough problems pop up, I know the difference. Older cardiologists that actually that have had heart attacks say they aren't the same (I trust a cardio that has had heart problems a lot more than other docs).

I've had diagnosed GERD for 12 years now--many more before the dx. I've had 5 upper GIs and have the beginnings of Barrett's Esophagus. Biopsies though are benign.

The problem with the esophagus, is it can spasm as well. From that, it can indeed mimic some symptoms of a heart attack. Acid, is acid and I think just about everyone knows what acid feels like. A problem with the aorta can feel like a GI issue.

A pitfall for esophageal spasm is that the same medications used to treat heart problems such as CAD and coronary spasm are calcium channel blockers, and betas to a degree. The problem is that calcium channel blockers can lessen the esoph. spasm, but make GERD worse.

What my gastros did (it came down to a head to head battle between 2 gastros and multiple cardios) is nuke my body for GERD, esophageal spasm. Symptoms did not change, and with some diagnostic esophageal testing including manometry, it became obvious it was my heart.

Very frustrating, painful, and time consuming. At one point I had the presidents of cardiology and gastroenterology at a mega center battling it out.

Now, after time it is obvious that it is cardiac, and GERD isn't even mentioned.

But, it does play a role as you don't want something like Barretts' creeping in.

I may try a switch to protonix. But Aciphex can help with irritable bowel too.

And worse yet is that women can often present with different symptoms of heart attack then men. They may only have posterior back pain and not the usual MI symptoms.

That research was just coming out when I was working EMS. We had a lot of training meetings with the ER docs on the new findings. Brand new field care protocols were drawn up.

Now women with back pain and in the higher risk age group get the whole nine yards of a full cardiac work up. In the field we had to be more persistent to get women with back pain to go to the hospital.

There seems to be too many hellish conditions that take a lot of time and resources to rule out and treat.

Then to have docs arguing with each other over your treatment plan is quite disturbing. That's probably why the call their profession a practice.

What other profession would we as a society accept that they're "practicing"? The person building a commercial jet we fly in? A daycare employee that watches our kids? The ride operator at an amusement park?

Imagine hearing "We have a jet building practice" "we have a daycare practice" or "amusement park ride operating practice"

Great information you guys are giving. This is a lot of stuff I didn't know. I get so preoccupied trying to figure out my migraines that all my gi issues are on the sideburner right now. I just know 'severe heartburn' was an understatement before I got some medicine that worked. I'll have to confirm with my doctor though that it's not conflicting with my blood pressure/migraine medicine.

There is also a new otc drug on the market called prevacid. Honestly, didn't work for me at all, but it might be worth a try if other medicine doesn't work for you. After three days, I was forced to go back to omeprazole/prilosec because food just wouldn't go down it got so bad, but thats what happens if I try and rely on zantac alone also. Protonix or omeprazole seems to work for me so I'm not too worried about it at the moment. Hope it stays that way!

Thanks for the photo Brent. They gave me a dvd copy of the scopes and I had no idea what I was looking at.
In fact, wasn't sure which end was which. LOL
When I have the brain to make the dvd player work, will look with renewed interest for my sphincter.
I must have a very base sense of humor.

Brent. thank you so much for all of the helpful information. There was a time that I went to every doctor, gastro included, had every test and no one really mentioned GERD until recently. I hate taking medicine everyday of any kind. especially if it will bring on a migraine and I think some people might be more sensitive to certain medications. Actually, I find that zantac 150 otc works as good as anything and my symptoms are loss of appetite, nausea, burning, even in my back between my shoulder blades sometimes.
Thanks again, you told me more than many of the doctors I have seen.

I forgot to ask about the apple cider vinegar..do you take it everyday or just when you have symptoms?

Just when I need it. Which isn't often but it's instant relief.

Brent - Along the same process as the apple cider vinegar, I use digestive enzymes I get from a chiropractor and it prevents heartburn completely as long as I'm not totally stupid with what I eat. I take them before I eat, especially with meals with more protein, and I'm just fine.

Noona, are you talking about probiotics? I take a probiotic supplement and it really seems to help.

Thank you so much Brent for the photo.
It only occured to me this morning to put the scope dvd in the lap top this morning after trying to fix the dvd player. That's sums me up pretty well lately.
Went through till I found the exact frame as your photo and mine is pretty well a photo copy. If anything the burnt areas a bit worse.
So to all of you on this thread THANK YOU.
The scope was done in 2006 and specialist did put the note on as per previous post.
The gp however must have regarded it as insignificant and didn't go into it at all.
It would have spared at least one trip to er thinking I was having heart attack.
I find it soooo bizarre that I am learning more from internet forums than 30 years of doctors visits.
Thanks again.

Noona wrote:Brent - Along the same process as the apple cider vinegar, I use digestive enzymes I get from a chiropractor and it prevents heartburn completely as long as I'm not totally stupid with what I eat. I take them before I eat, especially with meals with more protein, and I'm just fine.

That is a very smart and preventive practice. I also take a full spectrum enzyme every time I eat. The benefits go far beyond digestion and affects your immune system also. As we get older our liver makes less digestive acids and enzymes. So proteins we eat do not get broken down into amino acids. Our cells can absorb and use amino's, not whole proteins.

With improper digestion whole intact proteins absorb into our circulatory system. It's called leaky gut syndrome. Our immune system views these proteins as invaders an responds accordingly. So each time we eat we are hyper stimulating our immune system, it's constantly on a hair trigger alert. Thus we end up with it over reacting all the time which is what allergies are.

The last thing we need is our white blood cells busy engulfing and killing harmless protein.

So we then have our immune system distracted attacking harmless proteins and not the true dangerous invaders like bacteria, viruses and fungus.

Then next problem is inadequate amino acid supply to our cells. One of the first casualties are our joints. The shock absorbing cartilage needs a constant supply of aminos to regenerate each night when we sleep and the pressure is off of them.

If they are not regenerating each night then they are degenerating. And many of us know it does not take much cartilage loss to create pain when our weight is on them.

So bad digestion will set off an avalanche of very bad problems. It's not just heart burn, it's allergies, malnutrition and premature joint degeneration.

Probiotics are also extremely important. Every time we take antibiotics we kill off the healthy bacteria in our colon. That bacteria is needed to keep the yeast in check. We need yeast for oil nutrient breakdown but too much will cause some bad problems, not just in the colon but our entire body.

If you do not have your appendix then it's even more important. It is the "storm cellar" for the healthy bacteria during a diarrhea attack that blows most of the bacteria out. It can then migrate back out after the "storm" and re-populate the colon.

For some unknown reason the yeast always manages to survive the "storm".

My dad has dealt with chronic digestive problems his whole life. He even lost half his colon and came very close to losing all of it and having a colostomy bag.

I had no choice but to learn as much as I could about digestion so I did not end up with his problems. And so far so good. I have completely optimal functioning digestion. Right now I am at the age he was when he had the colon problem.

Desperation is an amazing learning facilitator.

"Desperation is an amazing learning facilitator."
Ain't that the truth.
Well it's four in the morning, (just past actually) and have just tried a brew of white vinagar and lime.
Closest things in the fridge to whte wine vin or lemons.
Will go through you last post again at a more respectable hour.
Thanks Brent

People can still have a very high upper GI acidity and subsequent heartburn. Most of the time it isn't and the vinegar(acid) is a good way to rule it out. And many of the digestive enzyme formulas have bromelain(sp?) and natural hydrochloric acid (HCL).

I hope it worked or helped you. That burning will ruin your nights sleep for sure.