I’ll be taking Sulfasalazine for the first time this week. Any tips on reducing the side effects?
My rheumy was trying to increase my MTX to a “therapeutic” amount - .6ml injection.
I was taking .4ml and increased the dose by .05ml and was in bed sick for 4 days.
I don’t want to be bedridden again with Sulfasalazine.
Thanks for any advice.
Drink Water LOTS of water I mean more water than you can imagine. Throw away your supply of toothpicks and dental floss and buy a new extra soft toothbrush. Stay out of the sun and if you get acne call the doc ASAP. For some reason some docs overlook the need for folic acid, don’t let yours be one of them. Also SSZ contains salicylate so always take with food (dinner is best) and adding OTC ranitidine or similar is a good idea
Sulfasalazine loved me for a while and worked for a while too. It gave me little or no side effects. But I’ve a horror of vomiting so I asked for an anti-emetic to take when I started it. I took that for about two weeks or so and I never vomited. Never got the runs either. All that happened with me was I got overly noise sensitive and irritable initially.
Build up slowly. One tablet a day for a week, then two for another week and three for the next. Don’t be worried about dropping a tablet down for a week and then trying again to up the dose. Take your time.
What end dose are they wanting you to be on? 2000mg or 3000mg? As in 4 tablets a day or 6 tablets a day? It didn’t work for me until I went up 6 tablets a day. And then like magic it really did work well for a while.
I couldn’t function with mxt side effects, so I was so glad this did something so positive.
Best of luck.
My script is for 1000mg/day, but rheumy wants me to start with 500mg/day for a week. I’m going to split the pill and take 250mg for my first dose to see how I react.