Hi, All -
I have learned so much from all of you (more than from my GI doc!), and I'm hoping you could please advise me on my self-directed PPI taper.
A breif back story is that I was put on ridiculously high amounts of Protonix for a prolonged period of time, and I feel this contributed to my development of bacterial overgrowth syndrome and *serious* vitamin and mineral malabsoprtion, which has lead to severe neuropathy among other things. I have been very sick, for a very long time, and I am eager to get this stuff out of my system. I hope that it will be the first step toward recovery/healing.
I am about 6 weeks in to my taper, and unsure what to do next.
So here's what I've done:
For the first 3 weeks I alternated between 40 mg of Protonix one day and 20 mg of Protonix the next.
For next 3 weeks, I alternated between 20 mg of Protonix one day and nothing the next.
During these 6 weeks I supplemented with 40 mg of Pepcid before bed, to try and avoid a resurgance of GERD, which I know can happen during a taper.
What do you think I should do next? Should I just stop the Protonix altogether?
Or perhpas try 20 mg every 3 days for a while? I'm not sure at what point stretching the medication out becomes less than theraputic dosing/treatment, in which case I could just stop altogether. Any ideas?
The taper has been going so much better than I thought it would that I don't want to screw it up now. I eagerly await any advice you may have for me, and I thank you in advance for your time and help.
Best,
Nina2