I have had some fairly significant health issues over the years and one of them in 2011 not only killed me but put me on a medicine indefinitely that a person shouldn’t stay on for years. I never bothered to look into the long term side effects of this medicine (Omeprazole) because I trusted the judgment of my doctors. They asked if everything was going well, I said yes, they said great, stay on it.

So I did. For about 12 years.

Now other things are going wrong and I figured what is the harm in looking up side effects, right? So I did, and I’m glad.

Turns out, this drug can cause kidney issues, liver issues, and bone density issues when you get older. The first two are because your body metabolizes it there, and the other one is because it depletes your body of what it needs to maintain bone density. These are the sort of things I’d like to have known a long time ago, but I’m honestly not sure what would have been any different. They might have tried a different medication or five and the end results could have been identical.

I have stopped taking the drug and am experiencing some rebound symptoms but I suspected this would happen as my body adjusts. It’s unpleasant but not “organ failure” unpleasant.

The inevitable failure and subsequent removal of my gallbladder next week may have been as a result of this medication but only in a roundabout way. The medicine itself didn’t cause the failure, but the additional stress on the adjacent organs might have contributed. This is another thing I have no way of knowing for sure. I am glad that after years of this useless organ failing to do its job it is being removed.

I will no longer need to live in fear that what I eat may cripple me for days at a time or actually threaten my life. It’s no way to live.