Rheumatoid Arthritis Support Group

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem, autoimmune disorder. It is a disabling and painful condition which can lead to substantial loss of mobility due to pain and joint destruction. The disease is also systemic in that it often also affects many extra-articular tissues throughout the body including the skin, blood vessels, heart, lungs, and...

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izzymimi 08/17/2010

Hi everbody, ive been on sulfalazine EC for about 2 weeks and now feel bloated and have stomach ache at times.Im also on pred 15 mg daily.
Is this normal? Has anyone else had similar side effects?
Dont feel like eating as feel so full which means dont have the munchies from the pred.That might be a blessing in disguise!!
Would appreciate some worldly advice...

deleted_user 08/17/2010

Yep, sulfa s. does that. For me, the bloating and stomach aches lasted 2-4 weeks every time I raised the dose, but eventually my stomach did go back to feeling normal. Until prednisone gave me ulcers, and then I had to go off that too. These RA meds are really hard on the tummy!

izzymimi 08/17/2010

Thanks i will try and stick it out while i am increasing the dose,Hopefully it will settle down like it did for you.

thinksRAstinks 08/17/2010

Prednisone made my belly bloat. I'm small and felt like a pygmy. It took months of being off prednisone before it went down.

deleted_user 08/18/2010

Did the same to me.....took protonix and it seemed to help

eliana216 08/18/2010

Hi!

Sorry to hear that - I had the same experience, though I had more nausea and less bloating. The funny thing is that after lasting about a month it then went away practically in one day. Hope that will happen to you too... Have you tried ginger ale?.

izzymimi 08/20/2010

Thanks for your replies and i will try the ginger beer you suggested Eliana!!

SSusieFLA 08/21/2010

when I was first dx with RA, had some stomach issues with too much ibuprofen and then celebrex- got some comfort from sipping ginger tea from the health food store, also chewed just plain ginger or sugared ginger candy, it's hot and spicy but then it was comforting-
sorry you are having problems-

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