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Opinions please from ppl on asacol

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Ulcerative Colitis
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Posted 2/16/2014 7:11 PM (GMT 0)
I have been on asacol for 12 days.

since day 2 My bathroom trips have increased from 3-5 to 8-10 with the past few days being 13

sometimes the bleeding is gone, or very light, sometimes there is more.
It seems that every time i drink water, i end up going to the washroom an hour later. It's getting quite frustrating and since all my BM's are type 7 (bristol chart) I get scared of dehydration, so i have to drink more water.... and the cycle continues

I know my dr. said it will get worse before it gets better, but I am having a hard time dealing with the waking up every 1-2 hrs during the night, and the constant bm trips during the day.

I just want to know if there are others who went through a terrible first few weeks, but got through it.

or if you guys had any tips on trying to manage the side effect symptoms, until the body eventually gets used to the meds

thanks
Posted 2/16/2014 7:19 PM (GMT 0)
Asacol did absolutely nothing for me. That was given to me at my official dx of UC and I was in a horrible flare. I honestly cannot remember now how long I gave it. I just remember going back in with no improvement and being really sick. I ended up on a course of prednisone to get stable. After that I was on a roller coaster of meds so you can't go by me. Point is if you feel it isn't doing anything at all, speak up and see if you can try something else or you'll just get worse. Good luck.
Posted 2/16/2014 7:28 PM (GMT 0)
I came down with UC 3 1/2 years ago. I was having about 3 BM's per day all bloody diarrhea and mucus. They put me on Asacol right away. The blood, diarrhea, and mucus all went away but my BM's increased to what you are now experiencing. So, I got both worse and better at the same time. Unfortunately, my frequency didn't get better for a long time and it was due to other things I was doing, not the Asacol. I switched to Lialda a few months ago, which I think was better for me than Asacol but I'm crediting most of my success to other things I was doing. If you aren't getting better in any way you may have to give up on the Asacol pretty soon and try something different.
Posted 2/16/2014 7:28 PM (GMT 0)
Hi.

I have had similar increase in D after starting Asacol. I have started and stopped probably six or seven times and every time I restart it has makes my D alot worse. I have figured out (finally) that if I start slowly and gradually work up to the full dosage I don't have the problem of increase D.

Note: I do not have increase of blood or pain or mucus, but increase of Diarrhea only.

I don't know if this is your problem or if you feel comfortable reducing your dosage and slowly increasing it again, but its an option.

Good luck. Asacol has worked for me for several years now while in remission. However, I am going to add Uceris next week to kick it up a notch as I'm stuck in a flare.
Posted 2/16/2014 7:41 PM (GMT 0)
My dr. said to give it a full month of full dose. I have read it can take a long time to work efficiently, If I try it for a full month and it doesn't work, than I know for sure and I can stop it and never do it again

I know at 20 mg of pred , it took me 15 days for the blood/inflammation to stop. so I bet the asacol will take that long at least

I'm gonna tinker around with my diet a bit, and see if I can improve the BM frequency

yesterday I ordered a thin crust pizza on whole wheat grains, with classic tomato sauce green pepp and pineapple....It def didnt help the gut, but it helped me out mentally. as I had the worst headache i've ever had, from the Iron IV i had the day before
Posted 2/16/2014 8:08 PM (GMT 0)
One of the things that really helped me out was in finding that I had a histamine intolerance. Some foods are high in histamines and can make your UC much worse. Since taking the digestive enzyme DAO before all meals it has not only helped my UC but has allowed me to eat those foods (such as pizza) again with no problems. Many UC'rs are low on DAO.
Posted 2/16/2014 8:11 PM (GMT 0)
How would you go about finding out if you are Low?
Posted 2/16/2014 8:24 PM (GMT 0)
To be honest, I don't think there is a test for it. I diagnosed myself because I had several things which were totally unrelated which made my UC much, much, worse every time I ate them. They were so unrelated that I figured there had to be something in common to all of them. After much research I discovered that all of these things were high in histamines. I ordered DAO from Swanson and gave them the test. After eating pizza, which is high in histamines, I would have 10 - 20 BM's over the next several hours, often diarrhea and blood. After taking several DAO's before a pizza meal I was amazed to discover that I had no reaction to it whatsoever. Cheddar cheese was actually what did me in the worst, very high in histamines. DAO is harmless to take, you can't overdose even if you took the whole bottle. If you google it you will find much information on dyamine oxidase and people with UC, histamines, etc. You should give it a try and see if it helps.
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