Omeprazole OTC?

[pinkstar01]

Can I buy omeprazole otc? I'm 17 weeks and my stomach acid is relentless, I'm taking 75 mg ranitidine twice a day but it's not doing much. So so fed up and unfortunately I have a really old school GP who doesn't believe in prescribing anything "unneccessary" during pregnancy.

Anything else I can try also?

Thanks

Bump

You can buy 10mg OTC although if you're visibly pregnant the pharmacist may not allow you to have it. Will you be stopping the ranititdine as I'm not sure if you can take both

You can by Nexium in supermarkets, its esomeprazole (the es- bit of the name just refers to which version of the omeprazole molecule it is, there are two different versions and the es- version is thought to be the more effective one).

Yes you can. I bought it when pregnant the second time and ranitidine just wasn't working and I couldn't get to the gp right away for a prescription.

I had to lie though and say it was for my husband. Which was pretty ridiculous tbh.

Thanks all

In regards to Nexium I wasn't sure if that was the same thing as when I googled it, different things came up. The generic name for omeprazole seems to be Prilosec and some sites were saying to avoid that and only take nexium.

It's so confusing, but yes if I take I'll stop the ranitidine as it's not helping anyways!

Does it get better at all or will I be stuck like this until I give birth?

Can you try a different GP? Mine was reluctant to prescribe anything other than omeprazole. But then checked and, when he saw that it wasn't contraindicated, prescribed it for me.

It was amazing stuff. I was swigging gaviscon from the bottle and taking ranitidine but it wasn't working. Omeprazole sorted it out right away. Afraid I had to keep taking it for the duration. It's pretty expensive to buy OTC so definitely worth trying to get it on prescription if you can.

@pinkstar01 a quick explanation is that omeprazole (prilosec, losec) is a drug made of a molecule that has two forms which are mirror images of each other (like your hands). The two different forms are called S-omeprazole (where the es- comes from in esomeprazole) and R-omeprazole. If you get prescribed "omeprazole" it is a 50:50 mix of S and R.
If you get esomeprazole then you just get the S- version.

It has been proposed that tablets that have just the S- version are better than tablets with the 50:50 mixture, possibly down to how the different versions are metabolised in the body. However there are also theories that it's a bit of clever marketing and there's not that much difference.

Anyways, what matters for you is that they are pretty much the same (omeprazole is basically made up of 50% esomeprazole) but esomeprazole is easier to get as it's on the supermarket shelves as Nexium (at a much higher price than if you were prescribed it).

If you are happy taking medication during pregnancy try a different GP, mine had no problem prescribing it for me when I was pregnant (id been taking it prior to then anyway.) I hope you get some relief soon!