Does prednisone affect absorption of mesalamine?

I was just prescribed 40mg Presnisone and my GI specialist said to continue taking my Mezavant while getting the steroid in my system, stating that our condition is about building up and deconstructing medicines for reparation and then maintenance. I guess the idea is that when you're tapering off the Prednisone, you want that anti-inflammatory ready to kick in as soon as the Pred gets you in a place where the Mezavant does the trick on its own.

That being said, obviously consult your doctor, but that was my experience. And I was on the Mezavant for 6-7 months prior to the Pred as well so it was already in my system and wasnt going to be yet ANOTHER new thing introduced in my system.

Good luck.

Yeah, I know they're topical. I know people take them together but I didn't know if there had to be some time between taking them.

I took mesalamine while on pred but when I started on 40mg, my GI felt the mesalamine wouldn't be providing any further relief on top of the pred and I was able to stop taking it for a few months. In my case, I think she also wasn't sure if I had developed an intolerance so stopping worked well for me. 40mg nipped my flare in a few days. Unfortunately I couldn't taper off without flaring up regardless of how much 5ASA I used orally and rectally.

Mesalamine is topical, meaning that it's only minimally absorbed from the colon anyway. Whatever you take with it would only interfere if it put a coating on your colon walls, and pred doesn't do that.

Assuming pred is doing its job and "healing" the colon, mesalamines should provide an added effect once the taper is over.