Boosting immune system?

Hi, I'm new here but have read this forum from time to time.  My daughter, 14, was diagnosed with crohn's 3 years ago and has had no problems since the initial healing.  Lately, she seems to get every illness coming and going, colds, virus, flu, respiratory, etc..  I am thinking about seeing a nutritionist about some vitamins that will help to boost her immune system.  However, last night while I was laying in bed not able to sleep, I realized that her meds are keeping her immune system low to keep this dreadful disease in remission.  She takes sulfasalazine, azathioprine, folic acid, and pepcid AC daily.  Will it do her more harm than good to take supplements that claim to boost the immune system?  I'm just trying to get a handle on keeping her from being sick all the time.  Thank you so much for any insight you can give me!!!

What is hard to understand is that our immune system is in overdrive attacking itself. So while we are taking medications to suppress our immune system, we also have an over active immune system. So perhaps the medications are just bringing our immune system back in line with everyone else. I have been on 6MP for over 12 years and while I have had a year here or there where I thought I caught every bug out there, if I look back over the 12 years, I have not been sicker than the average person, cold and flu wise. I don't think that my immune system has been "compromised" to the point that I need to be an alarmist and stay away from everyone. I do take every precaution I can and wash my hands frequently, care hand sanitizer...., but I'm not sicker than anyone else in my family.

Don't forget simple behavioral changes, such as avoiding touching her mouth and nose and washing her hands frequently. It takes conscious effort to learn new behaviors (or to unlearn existing ones), but it really can help.

My understanding of what might be called the "overdrive theory" is that there is a problem with the regulatory T cells, which means that the immune function is not able to turn itself off and cascades out of control causing inflammation which ultimately damages the intestinal mucosa. It's not that the immune function is incredibly strong, but that it can't regulate itself to calm down once the infection has been dispelled, which results in a constant cytokine storm.

Also, it is believed that perhaps IBDers immune functions misread good bacteria as bad foreign invaders and therefore are constantly trying to eradicate even the good bacteria, which of course can never fully happen because there is like 5 pounds of bacteria in your intestines. Leading again to constant cytokine storms that can't be down regulated.

My son just turned three and practically lives in the hospital, where i am writing from now. He just received four blood transfusions during our two week stay this time. His hemoglobin was down to 6.8, which is extremely critical. This was a week after he received an earlier blood transfusion, so that puts his total number of transfusions over the past four weeks at 5. He is also on TPN (IV nutrition) which we are going home on for at least four weeks because he has been losing weight for months. We are so desperate our next drug to try is leukine, which actually ramps up white blood cell production in the bone marrow, effectively boosting his immune function They give the stuff to chemo patients to try and help them reproduce their immune system after chemo. The hope is that the boost will somehow create more regulatory t cells in conjunction with the helpers and killers etc. Clinical trials haven't been real promising though.

Our real hope is to get him into a stem cell transplant trial once he turns five, if we can get him to that age.

Sorry to have brought this thread to a halt. I must have needed to vent the other night. Thank you Beth for your kind words.
Here is my son when he was a little chubby while on Prednisolone.

Just a clarification about the newer research dispelling if we have "overactive" immune systems....these studies are not indicating that our systems are underactive, but more so that they are not responding properly. In other words, they are more so "defective" then they are "over" or "under". This sort of inclusion has implications beyond gastroenterology and another reason why we must continue to support stem cell research.

And to answer your question, like everyone else has mentioned, usually behavioral changes and taking vitamins can ward off colds, germs, etc. Oddly enough, I had the swine flu last spring and felt less crummy than a lot of other people I know who also had it. Go figure.