Interesting. I walked out of my GI doctors office after a diagnosis of BE almost 5 years ago, holding a script
for PPIs with enough refills to last a year. It was my first experience with them and from that day forward, I spent a lot of time at this forum and elsewhere educating myself.
I used them for a couple of weeks, switched to H2 blockers, and when my gastritis was healed after 2-3 more weeks, and after learning the potentially devastating effects of long term use, I threw the rest away and never went back. I made lifestyle and diet changes instead. Of course, I only had occasional night time reflux and not any kind of daily heartburn, so I understand the attractiveness of these drugs for those who suffer with that. But as regulars here know, they don't cure anything - they just treat symptoms. My short segments were less 3 years later. I'm due for my next endoscopy in a few months and hoping for more good news.
There has been some speculation that its actually bile, splashing back into the stomach through a weak pyloric sphincter, and eventually making its way up, that may be one of the causes of BE. Maybe now there can be more research to study that. But I am willing to bet that even with this meta study result being published from a respectable source, 5 years from now most GI docs will still be prescribing PPIs for BE. Changes like this often take soooo long to make the rounds if your doctor is not making an effort to keep up with them.
Post Edited (rjdriver) : 1/19/2017 5:33:21 AM (GMT-7)