apriso side effects

I was recently diagnosed with uc and started taking apriso 3 weeks ago. At first I was getting headaches still am but not as offten, but worst of all I am having all most like a burning pain in my esophagus and my chest. This started last Thursday evening, so I did not take medication Friday and had know problems Sat. took apriso some amount of discomfort, skipped Sun. took Monday and Tuesday. And let me tell you I am hurting really bad. Called the doctor and of course he is out of town till Thurs. Assistant said to try and take prilosec or stop taking it till he comes back to town. I have opted to stop taking it , but I am in quit a lot of discomfort and took a nexium 3 hrs. ago and it still hurts. Wanted to know if anyone else has had this or any other side effects. Hope someone can help me out thanks a lot Hazie

I took it for several weeks and felt normal, but then I started to get headaches every night. Also my neck was very stiff. about 3-4 days after only having those symptoms I had chest tightness and shortness of breath. I figure that I am allergic to mesalamine so I stopped taking it.

Im currently taking sulfasalazine and am not having any side effects with that

Yes, I recently had trouble with a trial dose of it. My gastro advised me to add 1 Apriso to my usual Colazal dose once daily. Ca. 3 hours after taking it, I noticed a reduced saliva flow + exceptional stillness in my gut. After 2 days like that I reported the change to my doctor, who immediately told me to discontinue Apriso. Sometimes it is an inert ingredient in the pill that gives us bad reactions, not the mesalamine itself. That was true of original brandname Colazal, which gave many patients headaches & dizziness; eventually Salix altered the formula. I also got sick on the Watson generic Colazal, but can tolerate the present brandname formula. Try not to get discouraged about your experience with the med-- because individual responses can vary a lot among IBD patients. / Old Hat (30 yrs with left-sided UC; presently in remission taking brandname Colazal)

I am reviving this thread in order to thank Matt and hazie for reporting their reactions to Apriso. I had the same thing, esophagus pain and tightness, headache and extreme shortness of breath. These are not common side effects and so my GI did not think there could be a connection and referred me back to my GP. But I couldn't take a deep enough breath for a decent chest xray.

Thanks again for making me realize that I am not crazy. 70% of symptoms resolved the first day I stopped that medication. This fourm is the only place where I found such symptons to be described! I urge everyone to report any obvious and severe Rx reactions to the FDA which was easy with a web search and there is also FDA contact information on the prescription. I kept a day-by-day diary and the correlation was just too strong to be coincidence.

Now I am taking Lialda and isn't that in the same general category as Apriso? But here's what I found out: Apriso is released much higher in the GI track than Lialda. So it all makes snese...

Hoshi,

I was told that Apriso can be more effective because it has two coatings: one is time-based and one is ph-based. So you basically get the mesalamine released twice in your GI tract. At least that's my understanding. I also made the switch from Lialda to Apriso and I think it's helped--but I was also on lots of other meds when I made the switch.

I just started taking Apriso today, hence why I'm on this site. I am really concerned about the hair loss. How long from when you all started taking it did these side effects begin? Also, I was taking Delzicol 400mg. 6 pills a day. Is Apriso stronger dosage? I'm assuming .375GM is more than what I was taking with the Delzicol. From what I understand the Apriso works stronger and releases twice the amount with less pills. Giant pills mind you. Anyway, sorry for those who have had side effects. Any information on this would help me out as I'm new to this whole UC thing.

Diagnosed with Pan Colitis October, 2014.
50mg prednizone, Apriso, Iron, Omeprazole

I think the most ironic thing is that mesalamine as a side effect can worsen UC symptoms...

Doggiedo, a worsening of symptoms after starting a meslamine-based drug means you have an allergic reaction to it. Your are meslamine-intolerant, so try other uc drugs that are free of meslamine (e.g., imuran, 6mp, remicadw, etc.). Good luck,

I have been on Apriso for a couple of years and have done really well with it - I lost hair initially, but I was also in a severe flare and on Prednisone, which as Gary pointed out causes hair loss too. My hair grew back with no issues once I became healthier. When you are sick, you likely aren't absorbing nutrients optimally either - and that can contribute to hair loss as well. Just something to keep in mind -good luck!