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For those who've had problems with Asacol

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Crohn's Disease
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Posted 9/26/2007 1:53 PM (GMT 0)
I am going to start using Asacol. I'm a bit worried about getting a reaction to it. I am traveling out of state, alone, in 3 weeks and am concerned about having a reaction while I'm gone.

It seems I read someone's post that said they used it for a while and then had a delayed reaction to it.


Can anyone tell what kind of reactions you've had to Asacol, immediate or delayed?

Posted 9/26/2007 3:52 PM (GMT 0)
I've been on Asacol since April (12/day) with no reaction. They started me with Colazol, but that made me sick as a dogwithin the first week. How much time do you have to try it before you need to travel? Try not to worry just stay in touch with your doctor.
Posted 9/26/2007 4:23 PM (GMT 0)
I have been on Asacol for about 2 years now and have absolutely zero side effects. It has worked well to slow my D down and settle my gut some.
Posted 9/26/2007 7:21 PM (GMT 0)
Reactions to Asacol are unusual.  Yes, they do happen for some people, but odds are you won't have a reaction.  It's considered one of the safer Crohn's meds.

Posted 9/26/2007 8:39 PM (GMT 0)
I haven't been on Asacol very long (about a month) but I haven't had any reactions to it. It's actually helped me a lot.
Posted 9/26/2007 8:42 PM (GMT 0)
no reactions in 5(?) years.
Posted 9/26/2007 8:43 PM (GMT 0)
It made me 100 percent worse.  So good luck.

Posted 9/26/2007 8:50 PM (GMT 0)
A couple of hours after taking my very first dose of 4 pills I broke out into a full body rash, along with fever, chills and sweating as well as nausea, I called my doc and said to stop taking them, I'm allergic.

:)
Posted 9/26/2007 10:13 PM (GMT 0)
I take 12/day. The only side effect I've noticed is increased hair loss in the drain. :-)

I've been on this dose for almost a year. Good luck to you, I hope it works!
Posted 9/26/2007 11:32 PM (GMT 0)
I was on it for about a year. It also made my hair shed much faster than normal and became very thin (really upsetting--I was a 17 year old girl at the time...!). It took 2 years for my hair thickness to get back to normal after getting off the Asacol...also, it did not seem to help my Crohn's at all...on Remicade has.

Good luck! Hope it works for you! :-)
Posted 9/27/2007 4:53 PM (GMT 0)

Asacol made me sicker ...so they kept upping the doses....

da...finally when i stopped taking it I felt good...and my hair stopped falling out by the handfuls...but obvioulsy its not bad for everyone...

As for me, I wont take it again

Posted 9/27/2007 5:41 PM (GMT 0)
Been on Asacol for 3 months and it has done nothing to me and nothing for me yet. Hope you have better luck.
Posted 9/27/2007 6:41 PM (GMT 0)
With Asacol, i too have noticed more hair loss than normal, and it works great for stopping the diarreah but then my new problem is that now I have problems with constipation.

I brought it up to my GI and he told me to continue on it until oct 31st and we will reevaluate and see if I need to move up to immuran.

Good luck to you!
Posted 9/28/2007 12:19 AM (GMT 0)

While my daughter was on Pentasa. and then Asacol, and then Pentasa again, her levels of vitamin D, iron, and B12 all took a nose dive in just weeks.

I insisted on blood test before starting mesalamine, and then we checked weekly progress. Quite frankly, I was shocked to see how fast her hemoglobin (due to plummeting iron stores) could drop while on mesalamine. 

She also developed an abnormally low white blood cell count, otherwise known as leukopenia, while on mesalamine. She came down with mono while this happened, so we haven't ruled out mono as the cause of leukopenia. All I can say is that the leukopenia vanished within two days of stopping Pentasa, but of course she still had the mono. Also, if you check medical literature, you will see multiple warnings saying that leukopenia is not typical of mono, and that mono tends to cause higher than normal, not lower than normal, white blood cell count.

If I hadn't insisted on weekly blood tests while she trialed mesalamine, we wouldn't have even known about the leukopenia, much less the drops in D, B12, iron...as an example, within six weeks of starting mesalamine, her hemoglobin went from a healthy 14.8 to an anemic 11.9. 

I'm not saying you shouldn't give the med a try...I'm just saying that blood levels need to be checked weekly in the first few weeks you start it, because not all reactions are obvious, right away.

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