Heartburn

I've heard that heartburn is a normal side effect of the sleeve. I had it before surgery and was on Ranitidine. Anyone else have experience with it and will it go away?  I'm not quite two weeks post op....

Thanks! 

Patti

Hi I had heartburn post op vsg. I am 1.5 years out and heartburn has almost completely gone. 

1.5 years??  Ugh...I'm sorry to hear that!  Did you manage it with medication of any type?

Hi I managed with nexium first 6 months, then Zantac , then tums

I have acid reflux which stared at about 4 weeks (coincidentally when I was eating pretty much all kinds of food) Dr. Vergis wrote me a script for Nexium but WOW is it expensive and not covered by my Bluenet. So I thought I would try some over the counter stuff and within a couple of days - boom - it was gone.  I take one tab in the morning and one in the evening and it works fine for me.  The dietician said this was okay.  I know the reflux will get better with time, I hear 1 - 2 years.

This is too late for you, Granny, but for anyone with Blue Cross or other drug plan coverage, ask the doctor if the medication he/she is prescribing needs EDS (Exception Drug Status) approval. If it does, ask him to phone in the request to Pharmacare. Blue Cross will cover it as long as Pharmacare approves it. (It's extremely rare that they don't.) The request has to be approved before you fill the prescription for it to be covered, but that is usually very quick. If in doubt, fill a small quantity of the prescription and get the remainder once you get an approval letter. You will get a letter from Manitoba Health to tell you it's covered. Once you have that letter, you can submit your receipts to Blue Cross for reimbursement with a copy of the approval letter. Blue Cross will put the approval on your file and then it will be covered when you fill it again. (I've discovered sometimes Blue Cross is a little uncoordinated between sending out the approval letter to you and putting it where people processing claims actually see it so you might have to make a phone call or two. I've just been through that with a medication for my husband. They finally got it all straightened out. This has happened before, too.)

On Pantoloc (pantoprazole) for post-op heartburn, 9 months out. That's what the doc in Mexico started me on. Needed to get the EDS letter from Pharmacare for Blue Cross to cover it but holy cow it is expensive and a 6-month supply ($233 ??) eats up almost half of my family's yearly Blue Cross coverage alone (FYI: cost of the same brand-name drug in Mexico for a 6-month supply? $60)!