Remicade: First Infusion tomorrow

hey ryan welcome to the forum! i dont really think you have to worry about side effects at first. i think with most biologics you dont see side effects till you start building anti bodies against the drug which could be anywhere from a year to ten years, its different for everybody. for me it lasted about a year and a half and i felt great, really a powerfull drug and it kicks in really fast. for me it stoped being effective and i would get flushed really easily then when i had my last infusion i had a reaction and stoped taking it. i definatly dont regret my decsion for taking it though, it was the only drug that made me feel almost normal, no one likes taking drugs but the side effects of not taking anything can be worse sometimes. i hope this really works for you and i wish you the best :)

I've been on Remicade since Nov. 2011. I didn't noticed how well it worked until April 2012 when I was able to successfully taper off of Prednisone. I started feeling great, almost normal.

Unfortunately within the last 6 months the chrons would show up with 3 weeks til my next infusion. So after a 2nd colonoscopy I was put on double the dose. I had my first double dose in June. I had a lot of anxiety overload though and with it a lot of symptoms. So it's hard to tell how effective it was. My next in fusion is August 5th and I'm dealing with some pain now. So hopefully this go around it works better.

I'm afraid my body might have built a resistance to it.

yeah, Mayo does tylenol/benadryl pre-meds as a preventative measure. i also get solumedrol (sp?) as a pre-med because i've been on it before.

for side-effects, i haven't seen that many. i noticed for a couple days after my last infusion (which was bumped up to the higher dose ratio) my core was sore; my abs, ribs, all the muscles in that area. felt like i'd spent a day exercising or something. went away same as it does after actually exercising. dunno if that was the remicade or if i actually did more moving around than i remember, but as side effects go it was pretty harmless.

i have noticed that during the infusion i will often sweat profusely, even if the room is cold, and sometimes i feel like i'm almost having an allergic reaction, but never enough to be sure.

anyway it's by far the best medication i've been on. humira worked but not nearly as well. plus i hate self-injecting. so just going and having an IV put in and then napping/reading for a few hours is quite nice. oh, that's another thing. you'll need a ride home (they'll probably give you benadryl, which can make you sleepy, and you're not supposed to drive like that) and the infusion itself can take several hours. I get an infusion of iron sucrose afterwards which takes a while too so I'm usually there for ~6 hours. The Remicade is about 4 of that. It's probably best to just plan things so the infusion is the last thing you need to be on time for. That way if they're running late or something comes up or whatever you're not throwing the rest of your plans out of whack.