FOR ME, there was life before Prilosec, and I wasn’t sure there would ever be life after.
I had my first taste of acid reflux at age 12, after some particularly greasy school-cafeteria fries. It was hot and sour, like someone squirted soap at the back of my throat. My mom gave me a Tums from her personal stash. By college I was chugging Maalox, stacking the empty bottles along my dorm-room windowsill like beer cans. It was funny to but my doctor had a more sobering take: I had all the telltale signs of gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, and I’d need to get it under control before it led to something
