The medication takes approximately two and a half hours to begin working, so it won’t be effective for current symptoms. However, patients who need immediate relief from their acid reflux symptoms can combine pantoprazole with fast-acting Tums or Maalox to reduce the amount of acid.

It’s usual to take pantoprazole once a day, first thing in the morning. If you take pantoprazole twice a day, take 1 dose in the morning and 1 dose in the evening. It’s best to take pantoprazole an hour before a meal.

The most common side effects reported include headache, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting. Reports of more serious side effects include kidney disease, fractures, infections and vitamin deficiencies, but these are very rare and are generally associated with long-term use (using these products for more than a year).

For all other reasons for taking pantoprazole, your treatment will last for as long as is necessary to control your symptoms. Some foods may make your symptoms worse. Foods and drinks that have been suspected of this include peppermint, tomatoes, chocolate, spicy foods, hot drinks, coffee, and alcoholic drinks.

The more common side effects that can occur with pantoprazole include:

• headache.
• diarrhea.
• stomach pain.
• nausea or vomiting.
• gas.
• dizziness.
• joint pain.

Are Protonix and Zantac the Same Thing? Protonix (pantoprazole sodium) and Zantac (ranitidine hydrochloride) are used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and erosive esophagitis. Zantac is also used for treating heartburn and Zollinger-Ellison syndrome. Protonix and Zantac belong to different drug classes.

In conclusion, pantoprazole was more effective than ranitidine in the healing rate and relief from reflux esophagitis-associated symptoms, and Hp infection was associated with higher healing rate during therapy with pantoprazole but not with ranitidine.

These include proton pump inhibitors such as esomeprazole (Nexium), omeprazole (Prilosec), pantoprazole (Protonix) and lansoprazole (Prevacid). The others are antacids such as Maalox, Mylanta and Tums; and H2 (histamine) receptor antagonists such as famotidine (Pepcid), and cimetidine (Tagamet).