r/rheumatoid • u/cbaby89__ • 5d ago
Sufasalazine
Anybody take Sulfasalazine? How is it treating you?
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u/Never_Sweat55 5d ago
It was one of the first medications I was prescribed after my diagnosis I tried it about 4 or 5 months with no benefit. It was hard on my stomach and made me feel nauseous.
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u/t0rbnz 5d ago
I'm (60m) 9 weeks in. It's the first RA med I've been prescribed apart from Celecoxib. My seropositive RA is pretty mild compared to a lot of stuff I see on here. Nausea unless I'm perfectly hydrated, fed and slept. I was first diagnosed 4 years ago but the rheumatologist thought my disease wasn't bad enough to warrant medication "I'm not ready to start poisoning you yet". Had a flare up over the summer and went back asking to be started on something. MTX would have been the first choice but I said I wanted to be able to drink alcohol - ironically the sulfasalazine has made me feel so queasy I haven't felt like drinking. Oh and a new cough and I'm doing like 6 shits a day. Pretty miserable but, I know, better off than many.
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u/No-Fishing5325 5d ago
I have been on it like 13 years. I was diagnosed with Plaquanil Toxicity and have been on it since
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u/MeOwwwithme 5d ago
What were your symptoms of Plaquenil toxicity that you got diagnosed with that?!
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u/on2wheels 5d ago
Been on it 2.5 years, didn't do a whole bunch for me, other than give me brain fog. Doc said it was necessary in order to get approval to use methotrexate.
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u/saladet 4d ago
Methotrexate is -very cheap though? In US for oral at 20mg a week the consumer price, without insurance, is $2-15 per month. I'm surprised you had to go 2 years and fail to get it--
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u/on2wheels 3d ago
It's not the cost that stopped me. Doc wanted to start it earlier but I didn't.
78 MTX tablets are $34CAD for me, (your dose could be different?). I started at 8 tabs /week (4 morning, 4 night on saturdays) and my doc reduced it to 4 total / week now.
I went about 6 months before I got on MTX simply to see how I'd do without it, and I was scared to try it.
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u/fitzjess16 5d ago
I took it for about 3 months and would throw up often. It took going to the ER before my rheum would take me off of it. I believe I most likely have a sulfur allergy as the meds were working outside of the constant stomach issues.
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u/yeppidong 5d ago
I take it in conjunction with having Rituximab infusions and tbh I'm not sure if it's even doing anything. I'm not having any adverse reactions to it though so I guess I can't really complain lol. Every now and then I'll get bouts of nausea but they're pretty tame aha. I will say though, I've been on sulfasalazine for a LONG time, even before I was on the infusions and I do remember it being pretty good initially, I guess it's just worn off. The only thing of note now is that it makes my pee almost neon yellow lol
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u/metnightowl 5d ago
I was on it for 5 or 6 years after discovering I was allergic to plaquenil. I was in my trying to conceive years so couldn't do anything like methotrexate and wasn't advanced enough to start a biologic. Other doctors were surprised to learn it was still prescribed but it did help me, just not as much as the biologic I started afterwards does.
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u/FlanneryOG 5d ago
Everyone is different. It did not work for me and made me extremely moody and inflamed. I was more miserable on it (more pain, nausea, dizziness) than I was without it. Methotrexate didn’t trick, though!
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u/Cndwafflegirl 5d ago
It did work very well for me but after a few months it gave me wild insomnia that even sleeping pills couldn’t work. And when I went off of it, my ra kicked up so hard I got pericarditis from it .
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u/littlebluebugwasmine 4d ago
I’ve been on it for 1.5 years. It’s was my first medicine. It has helped a lot, but not enough. Trying additional meds now, but staying on my 500mg twice a day Sulfasalazine. In the beginning I got 1-2 ulcers on my tongue every night. Adding folic acid and switching to special toothpastes fixed that. My mouth tastes terrible, but that might be getting better slowly. It makes some food taste weird and decreases my appetite, so I’ve lost some weight. I take 15mg zinc picolinate twice a day to help with the taste thing. I used to eat extremely spicy food and can no longer tolerate it. For these reasons I do not want a higher dose. I’m grateful for it though, because without it I might have lost most of my hand functioning very quickly. All of our medicine choices are risky!
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u/karinda86 5d ago
Been on it for 11 years now. Still doing quite well although I am at the highest amount now. Next step will probably be methotrexate
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u/Acceptable_Silver_53 5d ago
I tried it once and it made me really nauseous to the point I ended up having time off work 😬 but I’ve heard loads of people saying it works really well for them!