Sulfasalazine / Mesalazine experiences?

Therapeutic Efforts Pharmaceutical
#1

I’ve been prescribed Sulfasalazine for bowel/lower abdomen inflammation. Has anybody taken it, or its ‘sister-drug’ Mesalazine?

It’s a powerful NSAID originally developed for rheumatoid arthritis, but people with inflammatory bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease also see benefits.

It has some potentially nasty side effects, like decreased sperm production, but that could be a risk worth taking. Any thoughts?

Here’s the PubMed description:
http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/summary/summary.cgi?sid=134337474&loc=es_rss#x332

#2

Yes it is used for RA. I have a family member who takes it and it is well tolerated.

I cannot say for myself. Are you trying to treat the prostate? What are you trying to treat exactly? That drug in my knowledge is not very powerful and is only used in conjunction with other drugs as in the case of my family member.

If it’s the prostate you should know that I had the prostate issues for some time but it went away. It’s the brain problems that you should try to treat if you had them for a long time.

#3

First thing to do for inflammed bowels is to go on a strict gluten free diet for 2-3 weeks and see if it subsides.

If I were you I would find out if either drug is a known inhibitor of 4 alpha reducatse.
My $0.02.

#4

My doctor attributes most of my symptoms the inflammation bogeyman. The strategy seems to be to target the entire lower abdomen/genital area and measure improvement from there. That might be a sound idea, considering recent reports of inflammation in the perineum floor/prostate region.

I’ve been off gluten and sugar for months, and while it does help, it doesn’t provide a substantial enough relief to warrant the ‘food dogmatism’.

It’s not known to inhibit 5 alpha reductase.