Rampant overprescription of PPIs continues, despite attempts to rein it in. This 3 part miniseries takes a close look at one of the biggest blockbuster drugs of all time.
Uurgh. PPIs are the pits! SOOOO many of my patients would take them. GPs give them out like candy. You try to get people off them, and ask them to instead have half a squeezed lemon in a glass of water 15 mins before a main meal over the coming weeks, and for some, it's like you're asking them to chop their arm off! Like it's too hard to do things naturally, but so easy to pop a pill! Too bad if you don't get enough nutrients because you can't digest your food properly after long-term PPI use due to not enough acid to break the food down. Malnutrition is not a worry, right?! :-o
This is the dilemma we're faced with, as practitioners who are trying to educate people to take responsibility for the care of their own bodies. For well over a century, orthodox medicine has been selling the dangerous lie to people, that they can just hand over that responsibility to an 'expert', and live however they please. A huge chunk of the population is essentially childlike in their orientation to life; they hand over responsibility for their health, the education of their children, their ability to live once retired, and their security to Big Daddy Government and its many tentacles (including the medical guild).
This is a great topic to bring up, overprescribing and over-reliance on pills has the population in such a dependent position. It’s important to note as well the rebound effects of stopping PPI is part of the reason why people are on them indefinitely.
My GP has been harping on at me to see a GI specialist as I have some chronic conditions (not serious) relating to my liver and gall bladder. I know I'm likely to be subjected to invasive tests, possibly in a hospital (NO THANKS), and be prescribed drugs I won't take. I keep tabs on my health by having ultra sounds, being disciplined about my diet, keeping a journal so I track what my body does and doesn't do well with (food and various stressors) and I support my body with positive partners in health such as a naturopath, acupuncturist, osteopath etc.
I coach my clients to ask their doctor questions like these:
* What condition/s do you think I might have?
* What information are you hoping to get from this test, i.e. how will it help you to narrow down the diagnosis?
* What are the risks of this test? Can you show me some articles from the medical literature that explain its risks and benefits?
* Is there any other way of getting the diagnostic information that you're seeking?
* What is likely to happen if I DON'T take this test?
* What treatments would you recommend if this test confirms the diagnosis that you suspect?
If your doctor reacts to these questions with hostility, it's time to find a new one!
If the doctor proposes a treatment option that you wouldn't consider in a million years, it's questionable whether you would benefit from getting the test done at all, unless there's another viable treatment option that you would consider.
Thank you Robyn for taking the time to reply for the benefit of myself and your readers with these important questions - to field the suitability of doctors.
It's always been amazing to me that people will get multiple quotes from plumbers and builders to make sure they're getting the best person to renovate their bathroom or build their deck, but they wouldn't dare to interview a doctor to find out if he/she is the best person to advise them on their health!
So true. A gp once said something that stuck in my mind (during a conversation about specialist referrals). He said that most of the specialists he knew had stick up A#*# disease, his crude way of describing the god complex. It prompted me to think more like a consumer with choice when navigating the medical system.
I think if everyone asked their doctor all that, most wouldn't even bother answering those Qs! It's a rare GP indeed that would take the time to explain it all properly. Most would just say "do this and come back next week" with no explanation at all.
However, the GP should be OFFERING this advice to the patient in the first place! The patient is not the doctor; how are they meant to know all the right Qs to ask?! After all, most patients haven't had health professional training, let alone most educational facilities not teaching people how to think, or to question things, either.
In my experience, surgeons are the only medical specialty that do informed consent well. GPs and all the other specialists pretty well universally suck at it.
It’s a huge issue in the veterinary world too. PPIs are prescribed widely to dogs, cats and horses in particular.
Dogs and cats, bring carnivores, rely on strong gastric acidity so that they can safely ingest their natural diet of raw prey, without suffering harm from pathogenic microbes. There seems to be a bit of literature supporting greater susceptibility to food-borne illness in humans on PPIs. Gastro-upsets are so prevalent in domestic dogs - PPIs (along with inappropriate diets) are surely a factor in many cases.
I have never heard of PPIs being prescribed to animals - what a shocker!!!! It's so obvious that if a domesticated animal is experiencing gastrointestinal upset, it's eating the wrong diet. Most vets are just as captured by the veterinary pharmaceutical/processed food complex, as doctors are captured by the medical industrial complex.
Absolutely. But a vet is generally the last person to understand that. When I went through vet school, our nutrition lecture handouts (not that there were many domestic animal nutrition lectures) had company logos on them, and the top pet food companies provided us all with free food for our pets, and they paid for our 'happy hours' at the pub, and sponsored our sports team. My boyfriend at the time was going through med school. I saw all the same things happening there. In hindsight, I think we were groomed to feel like we were superior beings who had a monopoly on medical knowledge - as graduates, we were smug, and loyal to the hands that fed us - none of us had the courage to speak up for fear of being expelled from our 'elite' tribe. I was lucky enough to spend ten years working for an incredible vet who knocked me off my high horse, and taught me the value of recognising that I had been wrong. Question everything. Best lesson of my life. We contributed to setting up a global society of vets who prioritise species-appropriate diets. It's nice to have been a small cog in the right wheel.
I think you've captured the essence of professional training (which is NOT education). Professional training is all about inculcating the culture of the profession, and it ensures that most professionals will never stray from the 'consensus' positions of that profession. Of course, if the consensus abruptly shifts (as it did during the manufactured COVID crisis), most professionals will simply move to the new consensus position, without pausing to question it.
Indeed. Took me a while to understand that, but I got there eventually. The opinions and beliefs of modern professionals move in sync like flocks of birds, schools of fish, herds of sheep. The philosophy of science is no longer widely taught. I wish we had learned about Kuhn and paradigm shifts and “intellectual violent revolutions” at uni. I’m just grateful I started to figure it out in time to reject the insanity of all things covid. I was already somewhat used to standing outside the consensus by then (heaven forbid you suggest that heavily processed corn may not be the optimal diet for a cat!).
My husband was in his 30s when a "specialist" told him he would be on PPIs for the rest of his life! After approx 15 years he weaned himself off them when on a low carb diet. Later realised that the WHOLE problem was caused by an allergy to gluten (wheat). He has NOT had a tablet for almost 17 years because he rarely (if ever) consumes wheat. We also love having freshly squeezed lemon juice, it's beautiful and SO good for your overall health.
Has your husband had the wheat allergy confirmed through testing?
I suspect a lot of the problems that people report with wheat are actually due to the glyphosate that the crop is doused with, in order to dry out the grains to make harvesting them easier. Many of my clients who can't eat wheat here in Australia or in the US, find that they can comfortably eat wheat bread and pasta when they're in Europe.
Uurgh. PPIs are the pits! SOOOO many of my patients would take them. GPs give them out like candy. You try to get people off them, and ask them to instead have half a squeezed lemon in a glass of water 15 mins before a main meal over the coming weeks, and for some, it's like you're asking them to chop their arm off! Like it's too hard to do things naturally, but so easy to pop a pill! Too bad if you don't get enough nutrients because you can't digest your food properly after long-term PPI use due to not enough acid to break the food down. Malnutrition is not a worry, right?! :-o
This is the dilemma we're faced with, as practitioners who are trying to educate people to take responsibility for the care of their own bodies. For well over a century, orthodox medicine has been selling the dangerous lie to people, that they can just hand over that responsibility to an 'expert', and live however they please. A huge chunk of the population is essentially childlike in their orientation to life; they hand over responsibility for their health, the education of their children, their ability to live once retired, and their security to Big Daddy Government and its many tentacles (including the medical guild).
"A huge chunk of the population is essentially childlike in their orientation to life; "
Bingo. Although I'd like to emphasize: "A *HUGE* chunk of our population...."
95+%. Brainless. Spineless. Love them the 'experts'. Objective thinking never crosses their 'brains'. Ask them to define 'objective'. They can't.
I hope it's not 95%+ but I fear you might be pretty close.
This is a great topic to bring up, overprescribing and over-reliance on pills has the population in such a dependent position. It’s important to note as well the rebound effects of stopping PPI is part of the reason why people are on them indefinitely.
Yes, 1000%. I'll be discussing the rebound effect in Part 3. A very similar phenomenon occurs with antidepressants, as I discussed in https://robynchuter.substack.com/p/antidepressant-discontinuation-syndrome. It's almost as if Big pHarma designs drugs that people can't get off 😉.
My GP has been harping on at me to see a GI specialist as I have some chronic conditions (not serious) relating to my liver and gall bladder. I know I'm likely to be subjected to invasive tests, possibly in a hospital (NO THANKS), and be prescribed drugs I won't take. I keep tabs on my health by having ultra sounds, being disciplined about my diet, keeping a journal so I track what my body does and doesn't do well with (food and various stressors) and I support my body with positive partners in health such as a naturopath, acupuncturist, osteopath etc.
I coach my clients to ask their doctor questions like these:
* What condition/s do you think I might have?
* What information are you hoping to get from this test, i.e. how will it help you to narrow down the diagnosis?
* What are the risks of this test? Can you show me some articles from the medical literature that explain its risks and benefits?
* Is there any other way of getting the diagnostic information that you're seeking?
* What is likely to happen if I DON'T take this test?
* What treatments would you recommend if this test confirms the diagnosis that you suspect?
If your doctor reacts to these questions with hostility, it's time to find a new one!
If the doctor proposes a treatment option that you wouldn't consider in a million years, it's questionable whether you would benefit from getting the test done at all, unless there's another viable treatment option that you would consider.
Thank you Robyn for taking the time to reply for the benefit of myself and your readers with these important questions - to field the suitability of doctors.
It's always been amazing to me that people will get multiple quotes from plumbers and builders to make sure they're getting the best person to renovate their bathroom or build their deck, but they wouldn't dare to interview a doctor to find out if he/she is the best person to advise them on their health!
So true. A gp once said something that stuck in my mind (during a conversation about specialist referrals). He said that most of the specialists he knew had stick up A#*# disease, his crude way of describing the god complex. It prompted me to think more like a consumer with choice when navigating the medical system.
Bahahaha, so true!!!
I think if everyone asked their doctor all that, most wouldn't even bother answering those Qs! It's a rare GP indeed that would take the time to explain it all properly. Most would just say "do this and come back next week" with no explanation at all.
However, the GP should be OFFERING this advice to the patient in the first place! The patient is not the doctor; how are they meant to know all the right Qs to ask?! After all, most patients haven't had health professional training, let alone most educational facilities not teaching people how to think, or to question things, either.
In my experience, surgeons are the only medical specialty that do informed consent well. GPs and all the other specialists pretty well universally suck at it.
Great article!
It’s a huge issue in the veterinary world too. PPIs are prescribed widely to dogs, cats and horses in particular.
Dogs and cats, bring carnivores, rely on strong gastric acidity so that they can safely ingest their natural diet of raw prey, without suffering harm from pathogenic microbes. There seems to be a bit of literature supporting greater susceptibility to food-borne illness in humans on PPIs. Gastro-upsets are so prevalent in domestic dogs - PPIs (along with inappropriate diets) are surely a factor in many cases.
I have never heard of PPIs being prescribed to animals - what a shocker!!!! It's so obvious that if a domesticated animal is experiencing gastrointestinal upset, it's eating the wrong diet. Most vets are just as captured by the veterinary pharmaceutical/processed food complex, as doctors are captured by the medical industrial complex.
Absolutely. But a vet is generally the last person to understand that. When I went through vet school, our nutrition lecture handouts (not that there were many domestic animal nutrition lectures) had company logos on them, and the top pet food companies provided us all with free food for our pets, and they paid for our 'happy hours' at the pub, and sponsored our sports team. My boyfriend at the time was going through med school. I saw all the same things happening there. In hindsight, I think we were groomed to feel like we were superior beings who had a monopoly on medical knowledge - as graduates, we were smug, and loyal to the hands that fed us - none of us had the courage to speak up for fear of being expelled from our 'elite' tribe. I was lucky enough to spend ten years working for an incredible vet who knocked me off my high horse, and taught me the value of recognising that I had been wrong. Question everything. Best lesson of my life. We contributed to setting up a global society of vets who prioritise species-appropriate diets. It's nice to have been a small cog in the right wheel.
I think you've captured the essence of professional training (which is NOT education). Professional training is all about inculcating the culture of the profession, and it ensures that most professionals will never stray from the 'consensus' positions of that profession. Of course, if the consensus abruptly shifts (as it did during the manufactured COVID crisis), most professionals will simply move to the new consensus position, without pausing to question it.
Indeed. Took me a while to understand that, but I got there eventually. The opinions and beliefs of modern professionals move in sync like flocks of birds, schools of fish, herds of sheep. The philosophy of science is no longer widely taught. I wish we had learned about Kuhn and paradigm shifts and “intellectual violent revolutions” at uni. I’m just grateful I started to figure it out in time to reject the insanity of all things covid. I was already somewhat used to standing outside the consensus by then (heaven forbid you suggest that heavily processed corn may not be the optimal diet for a cat!).
My husband was in his 30s when a "specialist" told him he would be on PPIs for the rest of his life! After approx 15 years he weaned himself off them when on a low carb diet. Later realised that the WHOLE problem was caused by an allergy to gluten (wheat). He has NOT had a tablet for almost 17 years because he rarely (if ever) consumes wheat. We also love having freshly squeezed lemon juice, it's beautiful and SO good for your overall health.
Has your husband had the wheat allergy confirmed through testing?
I suspect a lot of the problems that people report with wheat are actually due to the glyphosate that the crop is doused with, in order to dry out the grains to make harvesting them easier. Many of my clients who can't eat wheat here in Australia or in the US, find that they can comfortably eat wheat bread and pasta when they're in Europe.