humira worse before better?

has anyone started on humira and then gotten worse before getting better? I just took my second does(2 shots, first dose was 4 shots) on tuesday and this has been the worst i have felt since i was diagnosed at the end of oct in the hospital. (summery of that at the bottom of the post)

starting friday i started having a lot of pain that has continued onto today, this is the worst i have been since before the hospital. i have had a few times where i had pain after eating something bad and i was normally fine again once it passed though, i couldn't remember eating anything particularly bad so i thought this was the case the first day and continued on normally, next day still hurt so i switched to only better for be foods, next day still bad so i switched to cheese & yogurt, and the next couple days i've just been drinking ensures.

i figured if anything it would be better 2 weeks into humira, i'm still taking the pentasa. the only thing that has changed is its been several days off of the prenison but i was on a very small dose at the end, would getting rid of that 10mg of prenisone cause me to go backwards like this? i really thought the humira would keep everything OK but its been hard to function the last few days. maybe it'll just take a couple more weeks?



in end of oct i was first diagnosed with crohns after going to the er. there was a hole in my intestines from it that caused infection + abscess. fast forward a week of being in the hospital and over a month of having a picc line and getting antibiotics + steroids through it and not being able to eat anything but water for several weeks until a couple weeks ago when the doctor started me on Humira. Before that i was on just Pentasa and on prenisone still. i just finished tapering off the prenisone about a week ago, and just took my second does of humira(two shots, first dose was four shots) on Tuesday.

It can take 3 months before you are sure whether you are responding to Humira or not. Some people do improve a lot within 2 wks to a month but the most recent clinical trial results suggest most people take longer than that.

It could be that you weaned from pred too fast as pmedic suggested. In which case you need to call your GI - actually if you are that much worse I would call the GI no matter what.

My son had an intense flu-like illness that lasted about 4-5 days following his second round of injections so I am wondering if you are having this type of reaction too. His included high fever (104), belly pain, nausea and vomiting, generalized aches/pain, bad headache. Doesn't sound like you have all those symptoms but I thought I'd mention that too.

If you are having joint pain or swelling that's new or much worse and other systemic symptoms like a rash, especially one that comes out when you go in the sun, you could be having a lupus-like reaction to Humira in which case you shouldn't take anymore. 

Bottom line - call your GI.