Asacol to Lialda.....

so i had a little bit of stress added to my weekend....told my GI doc's nurse over the phone on friday i only had about 2 days left of asacol pills, so they phoned in the prescription, went to the pharmacy thinking for some reason that this stuff was going to be cheap....i'm still waiting to be approved for medicaid (apparently i'm on day 25 since turning in the application)...so i have no discounts or anything on meds.....so the pharmacists tells me its gonna be $360 or so....my mouth drops, hmm, what now??? so i call the doc and tell them about this, the nurse says they have tons of lialda free samples at the office but no asacol, but she needs the doctors approval to switch me over to lialda....so i waited to hear back from the doc.... no word on friday, out of asacol on sunday morning, no word on monday, then finally at 3:30 today I get the go ahead from the doc to switch to lialda and they have some samples waiting for me at the office!

so i get there, and they have a bag full of free samples, about a month's worth, they're starting me off with 4 pills a day, once a day, which is very nice....i was taking 3 pills of asacol, 3 times a day, very hard to keep track of...so taking lialda once a day definitely works for me!!! hopefully by the end of all these free samples my medicaid will have gone through, if not, hopefully i can get some more free pills.......i went into a pharmacy with my new lialda script, which i won't need for awhile, just to check to see how much it costs....$550 for about 40 days worth...yikes!!! medicaid or more free pills definitely needed........

has anyone here ever taken lialda?? any side effects or anything i should know about??  seems like this will work much better for me, at least lifestyle wise, i can take all my pills with breakfast and have the rest of the day to myself, without thoughts of pills or disease.....ok enough of that! hope your all doing well!!!

peace and love to all

sully

hi there.  what is lialda?  i have not heard of it.  I am on 12-16 pills of Asacol a day and i don't think it's doing anything anymore.

thanks. do you know how long its been around and if its as effective? once a day sounds NICE!

AFAIK, lialda and asacol are the same thing (mesalamine), they just realized that you don’t have to spread the doses throughout the day and that 4 pills might better encourage people to actually take the pills! I know I always missed doses of asacol when I was talking it 3 or 4 times a day. I’ve been on lialda for a couple years now (I surprised a drug rep when I said that once because he asked how long I had been on it and I said a year and he said “wow it’s only been out for a year!”) There was absolutely no difference for me with the switch. I never had any side effects with asacol and the same goes for lialda. It’s great, really, I just wish asacol alone was enough for me.
It is expensive but my insurance covers it mostly- I have a $45 co-pay but my GI gives me tons of free samples to supplement my Rx so I don’t have to pay as often. Also included in the samples are co-pay help cards, I suggest you ask for one if you didn’t already get one!