Slippery elm and meds

I tried slippery elm for one day and quit due to the exact reasons you are worrying about. Slippery elm coats your insides, which can be a good thing (maybe). It does not necessarily affect other drugs potency per say, but it does make it so the meds slip through almost completely without being used. That happened to me with the asacol, they just went straight through. I also take blood pressure medicine and that probably slipped right through as well. Can't have any of that. I don't think I followed the directions as they say to take the slippery elm like 2 hours before or 2 hours after other meds (can't remember which way it was). In any event, I started wondering that if you are taking the slippery elm to coat your insides to help your UC then it must not be working during those times where you can take other meds, which means if you take it 3 times per day and it only works for 2 hours each time, then it only works for 6 hours out of 24. If that's the case it seems like it wouldn't be of much value unless you took slippery elm every two hours and then you wouldn't be able to take any othe meds at all. After thinking it over none of it made any sense to me so I just quit the slippery elm altogether.

Since 5-asa is topical, I worried about "coating", but I decided that 5-asa embedded in the goop was not much different than the Lialda concept of a sponge-like matrix inside the pill. If whole pills started passing through, I think the issue would be that they were not dissolving. This is generally related to pH. Possibly the slippery elm altered the pH, and some other measure (e.g., tomato juice) could be taken to tip things towards more acidic. I think blood pressure pills would be designed for absorption in the stomach - because they act systemically.

I also found that too large a dose of slippery elm, did quickly produce a slippery bowel movement. It acted a bit like a laxative, and this could move pills out before they dissolve. But cutting back to a smaller dose eliminated the laxative effect.

Without controlled experiments, we can't really answer the concern raised here. But one thought to add to the mix: A lot of my crappy feeling seemed to come from leaky gut. Too many toxins were getting into my tissues. I seemed to feel better with a bit of slippery elm. Maybe it was acting like leak-stop fluid. This is a definite benefit that should not be discarded lightly. You can probably time most med doses and slippery elm doses to prevent too much overlap.

I have never heard of this. My doctor prescribed me asacol a year ago, and then my naturopath gave me my regimen for taking slippery elm for 6 months! I never had any negative effects, and I don't think there would be an issue with slippery elm interfering with 5asa's job because asacol is comprised of different barks/herbs at the same time of being a medication.

Slippery elm can be taken in the form of a capsule, powder or loose leaf tea.

I did the loose leaf tea combination and it was very simple! Just made tea nightly, the powder was hard for me to get down! :)

I take 1teaspoonful of Slippery Elm after I have my first bm of the day (which is as soon as I wake up). Then I shower and get ready for my day. Breakfast is usually at least an hour after I take the slippery elm so i take my prednisone and renew life probiotic after I eat. I take another dose of slippery elm right before I get into the bed for the night which is hours after I have taken my Imuran and vitamins.

I find that my morning dose seems to soothe any irritation that may have gone on due to my bm. Same at bedtime. I will warn you to not take too much. I read here where someone said it is not effective unless you take several TABLEspoons full. Well I tried that for about a day. It was way too much for me. Caused bad mucus issues and runny poo.

Also if you decide to try it, I cannot stress the importance that you get some quality slippery elm. The first bottle I got was from a vitamin store. It tasted like dirt, was really hard to drink, and didn't do too much for me. For a refill, I ordered some organic online. Waaaaaay better!