Prevacid (Lansoprazole)

Prevacid is prescribed for those that have problems with alimentary canal and stomach. This might be ulceration or acid reflux. Lansoprazole is an active ingredient in this medicine. It helps to reduce the quantity of acid that was made by your stomach. It helps to lessen the condition when it is difficult to swallow, when you are coughing all the time and epigastric burning. Prevacid is used to treat the damage that is given to your alimentary canal and stomach. The medicine could help you to avoid getting cancer of esophagus and avoid having ulcers. PPIs or proton pump inhibitors is the group of drugs to which belongs lansoprazole.

You can use products of lansoprazole for self treatment that are sold without prescription for healing usual epigastric burnings, that happen two or more times a week. The medication like that will not take your pain at the same minute you took it. The full effect will only occur in one or four days.

TAP Pharmaceuticals., Inc. is the company that produces the prescription drup Prevacid. As for the over the counter version of Prevacid, Prevacid 24HR, it is manufactured by Novartis Consumer Health, Inc. The capsules of delayed-release are supplied by prescription. There are also pills that should be taken by mouth in delayed release.




It is licensed to prescribe lansoprazole or Prevacid for the following conditions:

• When a person has erosive esophagitis
• Stomach ulcers
• Hypersecretory conditions that are pathological like syndrome of Zollinger-Ellison
• When a person has infections of H. pylori
• GERD or gastroesophageal reflux disease
• People that have stomach ulcers and use NSAIDs like ibuprofen
• Duodenal ulcers

An over-the counter Prevacid 24HR has an approval to be sold for treating temporary epigastric burning in people older 18.

Erosive esophagitis or gastroesophageal reflux disease

GERD or Gastroesophageal reflux disease it is a state when all the solutions that consist in stomach including stomach acids returning to esophagus. Later this becomes symptoms of getting a heartburn or GERD. After that, it might get worse, when a person gets erosive esophagitis. It happens when esophagus's tissues get damage because of the amount of stomach acid.

Prevacid is prescribe to heal symptoms of GERD and also epigastric burning. There is a license for this medicine for treating erosive esophagitis. After you cured your esophagus, you can take Prevacid against repeating of this disease.

Duodenal ulcers

This disease happens when ulcers appear in the beginning of little gut. Prevacid can heal duodenal ulcers and improve the symptoms of ulcer. Doctors also recommend this medicine for controlling the treatment of it.

H. Pylori Infections

Bacteria called Helicobacter pylori is a type of bacteria that bring ulcus pepticum. It is ulcers in duodenum. It is proved that together with Clarithromycin Prevacid can destroy H. pylori bacteria. Your doctor can advise you to take just Prevacid for healing Helicobacter pylori if you have a disease of peptic ulcer or you had it during last year. You will decrease the risk of having this disease just when you take Prevacid for destroying H. pylori bacteria.

Stomach ulcers

Those that take NSAIDs might get a stomach ulcer that is called sometimes gastric ulcers. If these patients take Prevacid, they might decrease the risk of having this kind of disease. Patients use this medicine for quelling the pain when they treat stomach ulcer.

Pathological hypersecretory conditions

This medicine has an approval to treat for a long time pathological hypersecretory states. It happens when the organism produces a lot of stomach acid. The usual pathological hypersecretory state of this condition is syndrome of Zollinger-Ellison.

Is Prevacid used for children?

Little kids of age between one and seventeen can be prescribed to take Prevacid, as a treatment against erosive esophagitis and GERD. Only adults are allowed to take Prevacid 24HR that is sold over the counter.

Prevacid is widely used to treat GERD, but still some researches had shown that little babies should not use it. There was one study made, that tested infants that are of age from 1 moth to 1 year. It was shown that there was some irritation and fidgety in these babies after they were nourished, in comparison to those, that took a placebo that didn't have any active ingredient.

It may be that this research showed Prevasid effectiveness because the symptoms that babies had, like irritation, fidgets and complaining could have been misunderstood like symptoms of GERD. It all could have been the cause of not appropriate feeding. So this condition should be tested and diagnosed more to define the objective. Perhaps these infants didn't even have GERD, that is why Prevacid didn't help them to decrease the symptoms.


Patients that use Prevacid should consider what is written below:

• Try to take this medicine each day at one time, so that the amount of medicine will be even in your organism
• When you feel that you can not swallow the whole capsule, you could open it and pour all the content into a glass with orange juice or applesauce, or tomato juice. Just mix it and drink all the liquid
• The drug is sold in tablets that you can take before nourishing orally. It also comes in capsules
• You can dissolve in your tongue those tablets that are disintegrated orally. You can also dissolve them in a glass of water. The doctor can tell you more about how can you do this. Manufacturers ask you not to cut or break the pills to have a smaller dose
• Do not divide, crush or chew your Prevacid dose
• Prevacid should be taken according to the instructions so it will give the results. If you quit taking the medication, there will be no results

Recommendations on what dosage to take when you have GERD

Dosage that we recommend for people that have GERD or gastroesophageal reflux disease have to be 15 mg one time a day during the period of 8 weeks. If after this period your condition was not improved, your healthcare provider could advise you to take these pills for another 8 weeks.

Recommended dose for those that have erosive esophagitis

It is recommended to take one time a day a 30mg dose of Prevacid during 8 weeks if you are treating erosive esophagitis. When you see, that your disease is cured, you still need to take 15mg of Prevacid one time a day to prevent its returning.

Recommended dosage to cure duodenal ulcers

You should start with a 15mg Prevacid dose one time a day during 4 weeks to heal your duodenal ulcers. When the disease is cured, the doctor could prescribe you to take a 15mg tablet of Prevacid one time daily so that the disease will not return.

Recommendation on dosing for those that have stomach ulcer provoked by the use of NSAID

To prevent the risk of having gastric ulcer or stomach ulcer, after using NSAIDs or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, you should take one time a 15mg pill daily during twelve weeks. If you want to cure gastric ulcer or stomach ulcer that was provoked by using NSAIDs, you should take one time a 30 mg pill daily during 8 weeks.

Dose to treat infections of H. Pylori

When you want to treat H. pylori or Helicobacter pylori, you should take another two medicines besides this one. Such kind of treatment has a special name "triple therapy". It includes taking a 1,000 mg two times a day of antibiotic amoxicillin, two times a day 30 mg of Prevacid and two times a day 500mg of clarithromycin. The whole course of taking these drugs should last for 10 days or two weeks.

Recommendations on the dosage for pathological hypersecretory conditions

It is recommended to start with a dose of 60mg of Prevacid daily for those who have an excess production of acid. The doctor could advise you to lower the dose if you noticed some side effects and increase it if you see that the medicine didn't show any results.

Dosage for kids

The pediatrician chooses the dose of Prevacid for a child depending on his weight if he is from one to seventeen years old.


If you have the following conditions, you should tell about them to your doctor before taking lansoprazole or Prevacid:

• If your have a disease of liver or it is failed
• You are allergic to something
• If there is a low level of magnesium in your blood
• You are going to have a baby or you are feeding him with your breasts

The doctor should know if you are taking any other medicine besides this one. This also includes non prescribed or prescribed drugs, bioadditives or vitamins.

Some of the warnings and precautions

You should know about the following warnings and precautions:

• Prevacid can go through your milk when you are feeding with your breast. In this case, you should talk to your doctor before you start using Prevacid.
• Treatment with proton pump inhibitors, like this drug, can develop a very dangerous condition, called CDAD (Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea). It will not bring any good, if you happen to have diarrhea. It is very dangerous when it becomes watery and you have heat and stomach-ache. You have to go to a doctor immediately.
• During some researches it was discovered that those people that take this drug or other proton-pump inhibitor drugs are disposed to have a damage of bones. It affects more those people that take this medicine for a long time or take it a lot. You have to deliberate with your doctor if this medicine brings you more benefits than the risk of having such condition.
• This medicine belongs to the pregnancy category B. It means that this medicine was not tested on pregnant women. Nevertheless, when they made researches on animals, it didn't show any negative effects on babies that were unborn. So, before you start taking Prevacid, you should talk to your doctor about how it will be safe for your baby.
• There are not a lot of medications with which Prevacid can react upon each other.
• The levels of magnesium in your blood can be decreased when you are treated with PPIs or Proton pump inhibitors. Once you notice that you have symptoms of hypomagnesemia, like seizures, spasms in muscles, arrhythmia (not regular rhythm of your heart), your doctor needs to check the level of magnesium.
• If a person has a feeble liver, he should talk to his doctor about using some caution when he is taking Prevacid.

Prevacid also has side effects like any other drug. It is a fact that not all patients that take this medicine will experience side effects. As a matter of fact, a majority of patients bear them fairly. When a person does experience them, they are not very dangerous and you can heal them easily, or your doctor will help you how to deal with them.

Usual side effects

Scientists studied Prevacid broadly during lots of clinical testings. About 10,000 patients all over the world were tested with this drug. During these studies, they compared and made notes about the side effects of people that took this drug and those, that didn't take it. That showed clearly all the possible side effects, when they occur and how they differ from the condition when you are not using this drug.

According to the reasearches, the following usual side effects had occurred to people that took Prevacid:

• Almost 1% had constipation
• About 1.3% of people had experienced sicchasia
• Stomach ache or as they say abdominal pain occurred to 2.1% of patients
• 3.8% had diarrhea

Uncommon side effects

There are rare side effects that happened to not more than 1% of patients that took this medicine. They happen so rare that you can not define whether they happened because of the medicine or something else provoked them.

The following side effect may happen rarely:

• Loss of hair
• Depressive syndrome
• Low level of magnesium in blood
• Blood-stroke
• Hypertension
• Sick headache
• Allergies
• Acne
• Gain of weight
• Bleeding of nose
• Loss of weight
• Fragility of bones
• Syncope
• Erectile dysfunction
• Asthma attack
• Ulcerative colitis
• Infection of middle ear
• Unexplained eruption
• Agrypnia
• Heart attack
• Uratic arthritis
• Infection of urinary tract
• Eye dryness
• Pain in chest

People may not even have these side effects. Your doctor can not tell if you will experience them or not. It is impossible to define it, if you never took this drug. When you experience some side effects during the time of your treatment, you should tell that to the healthcare provider. There is also a warning if you see that something is wrong with you and you don't know what it is, better go to your doctor. Probably it is not a side effect, in any case the doctor will help you to understand what it is.


Lansoprazole is a solution that is a part of an antisecretory compounds class. They contain replaced benzimidazoles that restrain the suppression of gastric acid by inhibiting the system of enzyme of (H+, K+)-ATPase on a secretary surface of oxyntic cell of gaster. This kind of system of enzyme is applied as a pump for acid inside the oxyntic cell, that is why lansoprazole is usually used as an acid-pump inhibitor of gaster. It helps to stop the production of acid on a final stage. Such action depends on the dose and makes the suppression of stimulated and abapical gastric secretion of acid regardless to the booster. This medication does not show any antagonist activity of second type of histamine or anticholinergic.


TAP Pharmaceuticals Products, Inc. realize lansoprazole which is sold in United States as Prevacid. Actually, a half of the company belongs to Abbott Laboratories and another half to Takeda America Holdings Inc.

In 1977 two huge pharmaceutical companies, Takeda Pharmaceuticals Co. and Abbot Laboratories had formed a joint venture and gave to it a name TAP Pharmaceutical Products. This company sells two main medicines that took a first place in their group. They are Prevacid or lansoprazole and another one is a leuprolide acetate used for depot suspension and is called Lupron Depot. In March, 2008 Takeda bought the whole part of TAP and the loint venture was cancelled.


A generic form of Prevacid that is sold by prescription is sold in following:

• Capsules of 15mg
• 30mg pills that are disintegrated orally
• 15mg pills that are disintegrated orally
• Capsules on 30mg

Lots of manufacturers produce Prevacid. They are:

• Teva Pharmaceuticals
• Sandoz
• Mylan Pharmaceuticals

Prevacid belongs to the group of medicine that is called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). You can find not so many PPIs that you can buy by prescription. Some of them are:

• Protonix (pantoprazole)
• Nexium (esomeprazole)
• Dexilant (dexlonsprazole)
• Prilosec (omeprazole)
• AcipHex (rebeprazole)
• Zegerid (sodium bicarbonate and omeprazole)

Zegerid OTC, Prevacid 24HR and Prilosec OTC are the alternatives that are sold over the counter. You could see that Generic lansoprazole that is sold by prescription is more expensive than Prevacid 24HR that is sold over the counter with a familiar brand name.


The following drugs, like ampicillin, warfarin and iron are those drugs that can react with this medicine. The level of medication in your organism is affected by their interaction and it also can raise or abate the performance of drug. You need to say to your doctor that you get treated with some other medicine. In this way, you will have fewer side effects.

Lansoprazole or Prevacis is possible to interact with a list of other drugs. There is a list of them below:

• Ampicillin
• Atazanavir (Reyataz)
• Clopidogrel (Plavix)
• Delavirdine (Rescriptor)
• Digoxin (Digitek, Lanoxin)

Prevacid vs diuretics
 
• Some diuretics:
  • Bumetanide (Bumex)
  • Chlorothiazide (Diuril)
  • Chlorthalidone (Thalitone)
  • Ethacrynic acid (Edecrin)
  • Furosemide (Lasix)
  • Hydrochlorothiazide (HydroDIURIL, Esidrix, Oretic, Microzide)
  • Metolazone (Zaroxolyn)
  • Torsemide (Demadex)
• Erlotinib (Tarceva)
• Iron
• Ketoconazole (Nizoral)
• Methotrexate (Trexall, Rheumatrex)
• Nelfinavir (Viracept)
• Posaconazole (Noxafil)
• Tacrolimus (Prograf)
• Warfarin (Jantoven, Coumadin)

Ampicillin
It may happen that the effectiveness of ampicillin will be decreased because Prevacid could prevent its absorption into your organism. You need to tell your doctor when you will take together these two medicines.

Atazanavir
There will be less atazanavir in your body when you take it with this medicine. Its effectiveness will be decreased. That is why it is not recommended to take Prevacid when you use atazanavir.

Delavirdine
It is actually not recommended to take these two medicines together. The amount of delavirdine in your blood may be decreased by Prevacid.

Digoxin
This medication can slow down the process of absorption of digoxin in your body. The time when you begin or quit taking this medication, you should ask your doctor to control the level of digoxin in your body by taking some blood tests. Patients that use digoxin could have serious problems with the decreased level of blood magnesium that will bring difficult types of arrhythmia (abnormal rhythms of heart). Your levels of magnesium should be controlled by your healthcare provider when you are using Prevacid and digoxin together.

Some diuretics
Patients could have low levels of blood magnesium or hypomagnesemia after taking Prevacid. So, if you take it with some special diuretics, it will make the level of blood magnesium more decreased and you will have such strong side effects as paroxysmal event, disordered rhythms of heart, and spasms in muscles. The doctor can decide to control the level of magnesium if you use Prevacid with any of the diuretics.

Erlotinib
The amount of erlotonid can be decreased in your blood after taking this medication. Actually we do not recommend you to combine these two medications.

Iron
Iron absorption in your body can be decreased by this medicine. If you need to take iron because of your anemia, you should speak to your healthcare provider prior to start using Prevacid.

Ketoconazole
The effectiveness of ketoconazole will be reduced when you take it with prevacid, this medicine prevents the absorption of it in your body. You need to consult your doctor before you decide to take them.

Methotrexate
The amount of methotrexate will be increased in your blood if you take it with Prevacid. As a consequence, the side effects will be more possible. You need to consult with your doctor, when you decide to take these two drugs.

Nelfinavir
The amount of nelfinavir could be decreased if you take it with Prevacid. We do not recommend combining these two medicines.

Plavix or Clopidogrel
During some tests it was detected that such PPIs or proton-pump inhibitors can prevent all the treatment with plavix. And as a consequence it will lead to a strong medicine interaction. Still the doctors can not really say how strong this interaction is and if it influences all the proton-pump inhibitors. You should first talk to your healthcare provider about the matter and after that, combine these two drugs.

Posaconazole
The amount of posaconazole may be decreased in your blood if you take it with Prevacid. It is forbidden to combine these two drugs.

Tacrolimus
The bloodstram can be increased with tacrolimus by Prevacid. You need to demand an explanation from your healthcare provider if you can use another heartburn medicine. If you can not avoid taking them together, you need to say to your doctor that you want him to maintain the dose of tacrolimus that is necessary for you and he should also control its level.

Warfarin
Such drugs like Prevacid are detected to enhance warfarin side effects. One of which is bleeding. We advise you to request from your doctor a more efficient observance. You might have serious side effects when you quit using Prevacid.

Conclusion

We may have not listed all the interactions with drugs for Prevacid. In any case, you should talk to your doctor when about any interactions with this medicine.