When I was first told that I likely had Crohn's we couldn't get my abd pain and D under control. I had been on Pentasa for months and was still having problems go my GI started me on Entocort. I was told to take all three pills int he mornings.
Sleep had never come easy to me, especially when my stomach was acting up, but within a few days of starting Entocort it was almost impossible for me to fall asleep at night. I realized right away that the problem was likely the steroid and racked my brain to see if I could figure out how toalleviate the problem. Even Ambien did not always help and with the alarm going off at 6am, I had to find a way to sleep. I began considering the whole process for how the Entocort was working and knew that although it's primarily designed to treat intestinal inflammation topically, there is still some of the steroid that is absorbed systemically. I wondered if taking it in the morning left it time to be absorbed later in the day and therefore affect my sleep. I switched to taking it at ight and I began sleeping much better. This is just another one of those ways that meds afffect each of us differently.
After I was on Entocort for a few weeks I began to finally notice some improvement in my gut and was thrilled. Unfortunately, I seemed to be having some real problems with headaches and thought that my allergies or maybe just my messed up immune system was causing an increase in my migraines. I happened across a thread here at Healing Well where two members were having a conversation about headaches they believed to be related to Entocort. I almost fell out of my desk chair! I had to weigh the small improvements in my gut with the larger inconvenience of these headaches that none of my migraine meds would help. It's not hard to guess that I stopped the Entocort and that there's no way I'd ever go back on it again. now I stick to prednisone if I need it. I'm not happy about the weight gain that usually comes along with a course of pred, but that really the worst of any side effects I have from it, so that's more tolerable than those Entocort induced headaches. Keep in mind that I've heard good things about Entocort from way more people than I've heard about side effects. It's really only a few that I've heard had problems with it.
I'm also at a loss as to why your Doc had you on only a half dose of Pentasa. I started it back when we only had 250mg caps and there were 16 pills a day. Today's 8 pills a day are wonderful. I hoipe that increasing to the 4grams perday and adding the Entocort will do the trick and settle things down for you so that you don't have to consider any of the more potent meds that some of us need. Remember that nothing helps overnight and it could well be a few weeks before you see an improvement. So give it some time. I hope you feel better soon
Be well.