Tweet Facebook Mail When Donna Johnstone began suffering from reflux more than 20 years ago, her doctor gave her a prescription for a medication he assured her would sort it out. And, to her amazement it did, Johnstone said. The mother, from the NSW Central Coast, began taking Somac, a type of proton pump inhibitor (PPI) which works by decreasing the amount of acid in the stomach.
"It helped the reflux, it was beautiful," she said. "I had no symptoms or anything, it was fantastic for that." Johnstone kept taking the medication for the next two decades, until she began having serious health problems with her kidneys around 2018.
READ MORE: Economy records smallest non-pandemic annual growth in decades Donna Johnstone had been taking Somac for 20 years before she developed kidney problems. (Nine) "I ended up with lots and lots of kidney stones," she said. "Then, my doctor was doing some routine blood tests, and one of them showed my kidney function had dropped to 19 percent.
" Johnstone said she was stunned to hear her kidney function was so low, as she had no symptoms. "I had no side effects at all, nothing," she said. "If I hadn't had those routine blood tests done, I would have ended up on dialysis, because when your kidney function drops to 15 percent they put you on dialysis.
" When she saw a specialist, the doctor advised Johnstone that the loss of her kidney function was due to the heartburn medication. "He said that this was due to the Somac. And he said, 'No more Soma.