Mesalazine and long term side effects

Hi everyone. I am just wondering whether anyone has experienced any long term side effects from taking maintenance 5-ASA drugs?

From about the start of 2011 till late May 2012, I had been taking 2 1.5gram sachets of Salofalk granules per day as maintenance for the inflammation I had on my cecum. Around mid-2011 I had a urine test for another health issue and I had a slight amount of protein in my urine (which the doctor said was fine so I didn't pay attention to it).

At the start of this year, on odd/random occassions i would see some "purplish" stains where my urine had splashed onto the toilet bowl and dried. This led me to do another urine test, which showed trace amounts of blood. 4 days later I had another urine test to confirm the results and everything came back fine. It was around this time that i stopped my Salofalk granules as i wanted to see what UC symptoms i would feel if did not take any oral medication. A few weeks later I had a cystoscopy which came back fine (and my urologist blamed the trace amount of blood to promenient blood vessels in my bladdar). Since then, I have not seen anymore stains on the toilet bowl either. A very brief ultra sound of my kidneys also showed no abnormalities.

All this seemed very puzzling and I wrote off the microscopic blood in the urine and stains on the toilet bowl as one off things until I read something last evening that said 5-ASA oral medications in rare occasions can cause renal failure (kidney inflammation).

Has anyone else had similar issues? (I remember reading Sherry had something similar in a post she made in 2010). Do the symptoms I described above sound like there is/was something wrong with my kidneys? I will be having a full colonscopy + gastroscopy in 2 weeks so I will probably ask my G.I for a blood test to examine my kidney's but seeing as I no longer take any oral 5-ASA medications anymore, I am not sure if it will show any kidney abnormalities, let alone explain if the oral Salofalk caused the symptoms I mentioned above.

Sorry for the long post.

I've had no side effects from 23+ years of 5ASA use (oral/rectal) except much less inflammation, no precancer biopsies.

Beth75 is one who cannot use any 5ASA because of serious kidney effects.

As long as you have regular testing of kidney/liver function enzymes, I believe that's a good monitor.

The purple stains are way normal...I've replaced many toilet seats because I couldn't keep them clean any longer. I think in part it depends on what chemicals might be in the water (splash) as well. I clean my toilet seat daily with Vim spray with bleach..helps a lot.

I don't know what would cause the prominent blood vessels...maybe it's something you've always had?
or from a past infection you didn't know you had?
I would suggest regular urine testing for that as well.

You might consider another oral med rather than the sachets. They do have aspartame and other ingredients for flavouring that you might be sensitive to.

Are you still using the rectal meds as well?

q

I got a stain on my wall from squeezing the air out of the enema bottle. It's just the color these things turn when they dry. Brownish purple. More purple in the toilet, brownish on the wall.