that's a great question and it all depends on how frequent your heartburn is. if you just have an occasional bout of heartburn for instance you ate a spicy meal then you can use a regular antacid a maalox or a mylanta product. you want to make sure though that you shake it really well; a lot of people forget about that. also too if you are taking medications you may need to space it; either take it an hour before you take your medications or two hours afterwards because it can actually bind to the medicine and therefore the medicine won't work as well. if you notice though that you have like two days in a row where you have had consistent heartburn then you may want to try a h2 blocker. pepcid is one consideration. zantac. you want to talk to your pharmacist though and let us know if you are taking any other medications. zantac has a tendency to interact with other medicines. so if you have your medication list handy we can take a look at it and make sure there is no potential for drug interactions. if it's two or more episodes a week that you are experiencing heartburn then you are going to want to go towards the proton pump inhibitor and prilosec otc is an example of that. you want to use it for 14 days but once again you want to talk to your pharmacist to make sure that you are not taking any other medicines or possibly taking any duplicate medicines that could do the same thing. then also if you are not feeling well after the 14 days a pharmacist is probably going to refer you back to your doctor or healthcare provider because it probably needs a little bit more evaluation.
when do i use an antacid versus an h2 blocker versus a proton pump inhibitor?