How long to use Rowasa

I’ve had UC for 30 years and I’ve recently had to use Rowasa a lot, can’t seem to get this under control. My husband and I are in a transition, traveling and moving (a lot- so a lot of stress) and now obtaining new doctors. We are finally settled now. My old doctor has agreed to help keep me supplied until I see the new doctor but after using rowasa for three weeks at a time I can’t seem to figure out when to stop, so I would start for a week and then realized I shouldn’t have stopped. It had been several years since I was having flareups and I can’t remember at what point is a good time to stop rowasa and how I determine that. I used to be able to use it for two weeks and be back to normal but now I can’t seem to reach that normal even after 3 weeks. Going to try a four week stint now, what is a good indication that I am ready to stop? Like I said it’s been so long since I’ve have flareups therefore I can’t remember the right time to stop. I also take two- 400 mg asacol three times a day while doing this which my doctor told me to do.

I’ve been on that dosage of asacol (I don’t think it’s HD, I have never heard of that) for 30 years, sometimes I’m even down to four tablets a day. I’ve never had to go more than four weeks in the past on the enemas. Never knew it could be something used as maintenance dosages. I have been going to a surgeon who specialized in gastroenterology for many years but he’s not just a gastroenterologist. I’m getting ready to start a new Doctor Who is a gastroenterologist specifically and I’m hoping he can help shed some light for me and get me on track. I went for many years where I was not having flareups.

I mean never stopping it entirely. So, I used to take it nightly for a flare for maybe 4-6 weeks (I can't remember exactly because my disease got worse over the years and I had to stay on nightly for years). Then I would go down to every other day for a couple weeks, then every 3rd day for a couple weeks, and gradually get down to once a week or every other week. I watched my symptoms. Everyone is different and our diseases and response to medications do often change, even after many years. You can take up to 12 Asacol tablets per day. I've been on 12 a day for 14 years. My understanding is the Asacol dosage you are on is a maintenance dose (meaning the dose you would be on while in remission to help maintain remmission) and not a typical dosage used to treat a flare. I'd ask the new doctor about the enemas and also about the possibility of increasing your Asacol dosage to 8 pills a day to see if that helps. If that doesn't help, you could ask about increasing to 12 a day. Good luck.

quincy here on the forum is the one who taught me about tapering the enemas to a maintenance dose. A lot of the GI doctors don't seem to recommend that or recommend enemas at all. I think they think no one would want to do them or something. I don't know.

I've been on Rowasa for about six weeks now and although I am slowly getting better I am still in a flare. At this rate I'll need to be on it for another month or two before I can consider tapering off of it. Is this normal for it to take this long to work? It's awkward to use nightly. It's killed some late night plans lol.

Also my hair seems to be thinning quite a bit more lately. Between lialda and rowasa I'm getting close to 9 grams of mesalamine daily so I'm guessing that has something to do with it. I use rogaine for male pattern baldness which is keeping my hair but it's so thin now, like baby fine. Any tips for thinning hair from mesalimine? I don't want to use propecia because of the side effects.

I have used Rowasa nightly for years. Tried tapering but that did not work.