to ask for Gaviscon on prescription.

[saladcream]

I am pregnant with a history of digestive issues. i am on omeprazole on prescription anyway. Even when not pregnant i have sometimes had to top up with Gaviscon. I have purchased thit over the counter. However, in the last week the symptons have got worse. I have spent a fortune already on Gaviscon and I think now is the time to get in on prescription.
AIBU

YADNBU - see if you can get the 600ml bottles, may last just a little longer!

IME Rennies are much better than Gaviscon - have you tried them instead?

YADNBU.
It's a necessary medicine, that's what the NHS is there for.

Sorry to disagree but I think it depends whether you can afford to buy it. If you want to take more than the prescribed dose, why should the NHS subsidise it?

If you are taking a PPI an it is not relieving your symptoms you really should have it looked into, at the very least have an H.Pylori test. Unless Gastroenterology has changed radically in the ten years since I gave up my upper Gi specialism in which case I stand corrected.

YADNBU!!!! I have Omeprazole and gaviscon on repeat prescription. Rennies are crap and do bugger all to help.

I don't know if I'm more excited about the baby or not having heartburn.

ohh, a Dr on the thread- of course you're free to disagree with the consensus if you have medical experience that none of us do, but if the national welfare system in this country is supposed to provide free healthcare and the OP is a taxpaying citizen then what should "affording" medicine have to do with it? She would be getting "the prescribed dose" if she went to the doctor... the pharmacy doesn't just hand out more meds than you are prescribed.

Some are available over the counter but this is for patient convenience and to avoid burdening doctors unnecessarily for minor ailments (e.g. GPs can't prescribe Tixylix to 1000 kids with colds and paracetamol to 3000 adults with minor aches every day.) The OP is already seeing a doctor for the PPI and it would just be another item added to the script. It does not mean that the NHS should not be providing them: some drugs, like Alli for weight loss and the chlamydia treatment, cost much more OTC than on script and there is no reason to pay if the person doesn't want to and fits the criteria to be prescribed them. Nonprescribed medicines even incur VAT- you don't need to pay TAX on something which is supposed to come out of tax funds for the benefit of everyone.

I would back you up on tests for H.pylori, having known someone whose life was made a misery for 12 months by this rather nasty bug.

Go for it. Gaviscon was my best friend when I was pregnant.
Unfortunately I had to drive to Dubai to buy it. Not available in Oman at the time.
I would go once a month and buy 12 bottles ±6 litres.

I used to neck it from the bottle and once bought boots own version instead of Gaviscon. No problem in that apart from the fact that Boots own calamine is in remarkably similar bottles...

One morning I swigged from the bottle as usual but got calamine instead! It was just so disgusting, I spent the entire train journey to work heaving then being sick in the train toilets. I got to London then stayed on the train to turn round and go straight home again.

I can still remember the taste 11 years later, and felt sick when I had to put calamine on chicken pox a few years later. Yuk yuk yuk.....

I must admit i am starting to wonder about having a H.Pylori test. I have had gastric issues for years.
1st GP diagnosed a hernia without even examining me and told me to go and buy gaviscon and if i need it regularly they will prescribe it. Only in the last 2 years have I been examined and prescribed PPI's which seem to work until I became pregnant.
Never been referred to hospital though.

Not planning on taking more than recommended dose btw.

Please get an endoscopy referral after the baby is here, you really shouldn't have to suffer with those symptoms for this length of time. Go and seriously hassle your GP, if healthcare is free you should get it. Unfortunately, as the point I was trying to make (albeit clumsily) was that healthcare is horribly rationed and this type of stuff is exactly the sort of invisible neglect that goes on all the time because there is simply not enough money. Even in the early 2000s when Blair was chucking money at us, it was still the same.

I was tested for H.Pylori at the GP surgery and the treatment was very simple.

I'm with everyone else YANBU. I got through tons in my last trimester, I was another swigger. I had to sleep sat up and all I could manage to eat/drink was cereal and milkshake....AND GAVISCON!

Ivana, That is quite interesting to read. I have suffered really badly during all 3 pregnancies and it starts of quite mild and the odd swig of gaviscon with a small bottle lasting a week. Now at 38 weeks I am lucky if a 600ml bottle lasts a week.

Everything gives me heartburn, even just a glass of water.

I think that pregnancy is an exception Ivana because as soon as the baby came, for me, all symptoms disappeared. Oh the joy of being able to eat!

I got it on prescription whilst pregnant as I needed tons! However I stopped needing it when I discovered that my indigestion was a result of eating wheat. I gave up the wheat and cured my indigestion with both pregnancies. Any time I had a slip up and ate cake, it would come back with vengeance.