How long to desensitize to sulfasalazine?

I started sulfasalazine a couple weeks ago and was doing fine until early this week the fatigue, dizziness, and nausea really got to me, then two nights ago I woke up sick as a dog throwing up and feeling very very awful. My doctor suggested cutting from 6 pills/day to 3 pills/day. Yesterday I took nothing (was still very queasy) but today have taken two so far. I'm already feeling the fatigue and dizziness return but not quite as bad. Just wondering from people with experience how long it took for your bodies to get used to the drug? I know everyone is different but would be great to get a ballpark figure, need a light at the end of this tunnel!
Thanks :)

one thing about Sulfasalazine that makes me chuckle is that people who are on it will then bemoan how horrible long term abx are.. when they are on long term abx+ aspirin

Id say it depends on how sick you are as to how long it takes to stabilize out. True. fax.

Thanks, my doctor has me at 1.5/day for now to see how I handle that. For me the headaches weren't bad, although I know that is a common complaint. The fatigue and nausea really gets me down though, especially having to run around after a toddler, and I'm not exactly Ms. Energy to begin with!

So Deltaforce, you are on it with Imuran? The combination works for you? Did you ever try just sulfasalazine on it's own?

Kazbern was 1.5g enough to get you into remission or is it more of a maintenance dose for you? Did you have to use prednisone etc? What were your main symptoms?

PathogenKiller, the long-term abx is not optimal, but then nothing about this disease is. Other ASA's are not working for me, and I want to avoid steroids and immunosuppressants because they are linked to birth defects and once I get into remission we would like to work on completing our family! My stepmother had a horrible uc flare that hospitalized her at around age 23. They didn't have much to treat uc back then and she was started at 6g sulfasalazine/day, taken down to 4g/day over a month or so, where she stayed and was slowly reduced to 1g/day maintenance dose. She has been on that dose for over 40 years and never had a flare since. Eats and drinks what she wants. One issue with the abx side though is that it changed the flora of her urinary tract, and if she misses a dose, she gets a bad UTI that, within hours, spreads to her kidneys and requires heavier antibiotics to treat. So she will definitely be taking the stuff up until the day she dies! That being said, as long as she takes her two pills a day, she is one of the healthiest, happiest 65 year olds I know. Also she had two children taking her sulfasalazine through the pregnancies and nursing. And they are both in their 30's now and healthy. She is probably the main reason I wanted to give this med a try, nothing else is quite doing it for me, although SCD got me really really close, until the 3 month point when I flared and can't get out of it :(

Aaah sorry I saw your signature but somehow missed the part about the Colazal! Well, I hope just 1.5g sulfasalazine will get me into remission without adding other stuff in, time will tell...