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Call the insurance company directly and ask them what acid reflux prescription your policy will cover. In my experience, insurance companies change their coverage for acid reflux drugs a lot--a lot more than for other conditions.
Their reasons are two-fold: 1)the need for acid reflux medicine should be temporary. If the problem persists in a severe condition for months on end, you need to be looking at other methods of treatment like lifestyle change or surgery; and 2)because clinical studies show that for most people, OTC medicines like Prilosec OTC and Prevacid and Tagamet work just as well as prescription medications.
In the meantime, I find milk helps a lot. It coats the throat and travels slowly down the throat, carrying the acid with it. You can also get cinnamon in capsule formula at the drugstore.
Try cinnamon or honey. Both natural and both cheap; if you get relief from either let me know. I use cinnamon a lot when I have stomach problems.
Oh my ... i'm all for alternative approaches but cinnamon can really irritate the stomach and cause heartburn and i can't imagine why honey would be an appropriate solution for acid reflux ... or any stomach issue.
I love honey and it does have therapeutic uses (raw honey) but for stomach issues / digestive issues and acid reflux?
Why?
And what is acid reflux exactly?
Last edited by coyoteskye; 12-20-2009 at 05:33 PM..
Another vote for OTC Prilosec/omeprazole. I've had consistent, daily heartburn since I got pregnant with my son 7 years ago - it's so bad that even drinking water can make my throat burn. I chewed Tums daily until my doc wrote me a script for medication last year. My insurance paid for the first fill at 90%, but subsequent fills were only covered at 10%. Go figure. I take generic omeprazole from Sam's or Costco but because my doc had me on 40mg/day I have to take two 20mg pills/day instead of the recommended 1 pill/day.
I had to switch from nexium to omeprazole because my insurance company would not pay. It does not work as well. I was on 80mg day.
In addition to some of the other suggestions, not laying down within several hours of eating and losing weight if you need to help. I have lost 20lbs recently and that has helped a lot.
Also, if you take anything to help with sleep. Guess what? A lot of those medicines relax the muscle that holds contents in the stomach and let them reflux back up.
Since my mail order Rx is one of the "biggest" I assume others are facing "step therapy" where they *will* give a mandated medicine if you try out others to no avail, but at a MUCH higher cost.
See if you can get Protonix or Aciphex. Fight the ins. co.
Aciphex!!! That's what it was the worked for me!!
Nexium doesn't work, so if OTC Prilosec is the same, there's no point in trying it. The cost of the Rx isn't an issue - it's only $10 for a month supply or $15 for a 3 month supply if I order it through the insurance company. The problem is it doesn't work. Aciphex did. I have a wicked serious pain in my chest that never goes away. Aciphex got rid of it and got the AR / heartburn under control for the first time in years.
I've not had the scope done yet. The doc said that would be last resort. He wants to do an ultrasound first. He's trying to be as uninvasive as he can. I love that idea. I'm not at all for invasive procedures. If the ultrasound shows nothing I have no choice, but I'd rather eliminate everything else first.
Surgery? Only if I'm dying or they want to tie it into a hysterectomy, tummy tuck, and boob job. No way am I going under the knife multiple times. I'll let all my problems pile up and take care of them at once. I'm surgery chicken!
Calling the insurance company today and the doc to see if they can push the Aciphex.
You're too young to need a colonoscopy but they combined my gastric scope with that since I was out anyway. I joked w/them about please change tubes in between. Found out I had H.pylori, a bacterial infection of the stomach. Not the main problem, but a contributor. Two weeks of antibiotics cured that. I also have a flared end of the esophagus that contributes and will be fixed next surgery.
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I'm surgery chicken!
