GMA story....C dff and stomach meds

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/wireStory?id=1424630

Why haven't I heard this before? I must be living under a rock?

In my LTC facility I think out of 48 pts at least 30 are on a PPI or H2 inhibitor with Prilosec and Omeprezol our favs along with prevacid sol tabs and protonix. We seem to have a good bit of C Diff too.

[mandana]

Interesting. I hadn't heard anything of the sort either, but it does make sense that if you reduce the acid in the stomach, you may make the environment more hospitable to pathogens.

I'm going to see if I can find some more data to support this. Practically every patient I've had has been on protonix, and now that I think about it, they've all had diarrhea too. Or maybe it just feels that way at the end of a day!

Amanda

[Multicollinearity, BSN, RN]

I'm surprised this story didn't mention the recently discovered link between PPI's and bacterial pneumonia also. I don't have a news link on the PPI/pneumonia news unfortunately, but I recall seeing the study from several sources.