Did Asacol ever work for anyone?

Asacol was a joke for me....never did a darn thing to help.

Asacol never worked for me either. I'm not convinced it didn't work for you because "your immune system was too strong"; rather, I think there are probably a myriad of subclasses to Crohn's and ulcerative colitis that have yet to be identified. In fact, I remember reading an article Jan posted that discussed how scientists have so far discovered at least 99 different loci in the DNA which can trigger UC. This makes sense, and could be an explanation for why some treatments work well for some people but have no effect on others. It's why I always tell people that most things are worth a try, even if they didn't work for me. Hopefully in the not-so-distant future, they'll have more targeted therapies for people based on which of their genes have mutated.

Asacol did not work for me either. I don't think it had anything to do with my immune system, it's just another drug that didn't work for my UC along with a handful of others.

Sue

When I had UC, Asacol did not work for me neither.

Rocket

By itself? No.

With a little prednisone or 6MP maybe some benefit to the
combination.

I think if you're asking people who have all had their colons removed and have jpouches now, that the weakest drug they use to treat UC probably didn't work :P With that being said, it did nothing for me either. I remember pooping out entire asacol pills in the hospital, they didn't even have time to dissolve.

Asacol didn't work, there was an improvement with asacol HD 800mg but I was also on 40 mg of prednisone, remicade, entocourt, rowasa, canada, and hydrocortisone suppositories before my 1 st surgery in November, tried everything else before as well.

I do have ONE friend on asacol and responded really well, but I think she's just lucky.

Asacol didn't seem to work for me, only if I was taking another medication at the same time (Prednisone, Remicade, etc.)- which leads me to believe that it wasn't the Asacol working at all, just the other drug. Like Subsky said, I remember seeing the pills in the toilet all the time.

I took asacol back when it was called azulfidine and it never did anything. Prednisone was the only drug that ever improved my UC when I had it. Remicaid and 6 MP had not yet been invented when I had ulcerative colitis.

Looking back at it, my GI switched me from Asacol to Colazal for the
reason that the Asacol was just going straight through me without
breaking down. It still wasn't effective enough so I was switched
again to Sulphasalazine.

Joke for me too, course all of the treatments were.

Asacol is just more proof that medical science still has no clue how to defeat Colitis

Sulfasalazine put my son's first flare into complete remission and maintained it for 8 momths. Then nothing worked. So I guess you could say it worked right up until it didn't.

I think Asacol destroyed my colon. I barely had any symptoms when I was diagnosed with colitis. When I started taking Asacol, everything went downhill fast and after 4 weeks I had to have my colon removed.

Asacol worked for me until it didn't. I took it for at least 12 years. Sometimes I took up to 12 per day. The outer coating of the pill was designed not to release the medication until it hit the pH of the colon. Sometimes the outer coating would come out undigested but the inside medication was delivered. I can imagine if everything was going through your system fast how it wouldn't open up.

So when it quit working, my colon looked black inside and I had UC and diverticulitis pan colon I threw in the towel. I didn't see how Remicade or anything else could fix the mess I saw on screen or the look on my GI's face as he took 30+ biopsies.

Asacol seemed to help initially - taken orally but the disease just progressed. When I had severe proctitis asacol suppositories seemed to help but once the disease spread to the colon then they were no longer helpful

Wow. I guess I'm the only one. Yes, from age 12 to 33 or so I was kept healthy with sulfasalazine alone, and then switched my GI. My new GI put me on Asacol because my wife and I were trying to get pregnant (sulfasalazine can lower sperm count, but Asacol and other 5-ASAs lack the component that lowers it). Asacol worked for me for a couple of years until I had a flare aggravated by giardiasis infection and the rest is history.

Steve

So far it's worked for about three years.

I used to love taking loads of Asacol and then seeing them essentially whole in the toilet. It was like a joke, a friggin' joke.

My doctor prescribed Asacol HD 800 for the treatment of Chronic Refractory Pouchitis. Is there anyone else taking Asacol for this?

I was in remission (with a few minor flares until my final refractory flare leading to colectomy) for nearly 24 years with Azulfidine, my husband has been in remission for the most part for about 10 years with Asacol, and my son has been in remission for about 4 years with Colazal.

These are all 5-ASA drugs and first line treatment for UC (due to generally good response and low rate of side effects). Since everyone here either had colectomy or is heading for it, naturally they would have failed medical treatment (unless they had surgery for dysplasia or cancer).

Jan