I've been on Imuran for over a year and a half now with fairly good results, it took over 8 months to kick in and was able to wean of Prednisone which I still have severe side effects from...

As far as crushing imuran there's no problem, at the beginning I could barely swallow so what I'd do is leave them in warm water and they'd dissolve within minutes, the other option is that you can get Imuran in syrop form but is very expensive so I opted for dissolving them in warm water and worked fine, you can also let them melt in your mouth they're not that bad tasting.

The side effects from Imuran are they up your chances of skin cancer and are bad for your liver...They recommend you staying out of sunlight as much as possible. So far so good for me but like I said my worse enemy was Prednisone try not to take if you can...

Good luck, keep us posted.