Humira?

Hi Cassy, I took remicade and it helped me quite a bit for 6-7 years until my body developed anti-bodies to it. Humira is really helping me now. I just started taking it earlier this year. It is the only drug I am on at the moment. My doctor has mentioned Cimzia, but in her experience has had greater patient success on Humira, so she likes to try patients on that one first.

For me, it came down to how much of my disease was active inflammation (that could be calmed by medication) and how much of it was scar tissue. Humira did help me with the worst of it, but because it was so narrow, I still needed the surgery. I had significant scar tissue and narrowing that had to be surgically removed.

One thing my doctor talked to me about when trying Humira prior to attempting surgery, she said that it may be possible that my body would respond to Humira, but that the narrowing is so bad that it wouldn't alleve any of my symptoms. So, she also monitored my sed rate while on Humira to see if it actually decreased. Now, post-op, she still checks it every 3 months to make sure the rate is staying low. In the past, she would only check my sed rate when I had clinical symptoms.

I am waiting to start humira too. I was on remicaide but it was mucking up my liver.

No problem.  Keep us posted.

I find it helpful to think of and write down my questions ahead of time, and take them with me.  I realized long ago that a trip to the doctors office isn't a closed book test.  I go in with my sheet of questions, especially when we're talking serious topics like adding biologics and surgery.

Looking at some of your other threads, it sounds like you are at a place where surgery has been mentioned without a lot of details as to the why's and timings of the whole thing.  I personally wanted to exhaust medicinal options, but I also didn't want to have an emergency surgery.  So there is a balance there, and it is very good to have that discussion with a trusted doctor. 

My doc talked me through my physical state, what my options with surgery were, and whether I should go forward with surgery or how long I would/could delay.  She even talked to me about the 2 different surgeons that she usually refers her patients to, what their strenghs/weaknesses are, and which surgeon would be the best for my specific case.  I was very appreciative of that kind of blunt honesty. 

I'm right at 6 months removed from my surgery.  I've written about the recovery side of it in a few threads here or there.  If you are interested, I probably provided the most details in this thread:

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=17&m=2228859

hi doll, my name is heather I'm currently on humira and they are great it's every two weeks you take the shot and yes they are expensive but i recommend it. They really don't have much in side affects, i hope all works in your favor! Funny thing is though I'm being placed on remicade could you give me some insight as what that is like?

lots of love heather

LuxLisbon20 said...
hi doll, my name is heather I'm currently on humira and they are great it's every two weeks you take the shot and yes they are expensive but i recommend it. They really don't have much in side affects, i hope all works in your favor! Funny thing is though I'm being placed on remicade could you give me some insight as what that is like?

lots of love heather

Hi Heather, why are they switching you from Humira to Remicade?

You may get more direct responses to your Remicade question if you start a new thread with Remicade in the subject line or respond to an existing Remicade thread, which would bump it to the top. 

To help you out with your question here, there was a good thread earlier this year with a similar question. There were several helpful responses from other folks experiences with it:

https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=17&m=2051554 

Heather.
Why are they switching you if humira is helping? Remicade is a great drug for crohns disease. It was doing wonderful for me. Until I started experiencing some kind of fungal infection on my scalp that caused my hair to fall out. Half my hair was gone. And I didn't have some lower back pain. Especially after the infusion was over with. Didn't have a lareg reaction to it until they tried to recently put me back on. I had bad pain in my back and was really light headed and my legs were weak so I had to go to the emergancy. They didn't do nothing but let it pass. But since its gonna be your first time, make sure they give you a steriod and benadryl and two tylenols so if you do have a reaction it won't be as bad. But everyone is diffrent. I also was really tired after the infusion but it could of been from both, remicade and benadryl. I had severe flame in my body with crohns and once I started remicade a few weeks I started feeling great. It saved my life. Than months passed and did a colonoscopy and there was no sign of my crohns it was remission. Now cimiza failed. Remicade. So pray that humira works. Doctor wants me to do surgery and have my whole intestine removed nd anal but I'm not looking forward to that at all. You should stay with humira if its working great for you. Because I made a mistake and got off remicade even though my hair was falling, I should of stayed on it and let it fall. Instead of my intestines to be taken out. But life has diffcult times. Got to learn how to get through them and try to help others from not falling into the same thing. well hope you the best. God bless. Pray for a miracle. One day! Just one day, a cure for crohns!