Entyvio for inflammed Ileum

First off, welcome to HW. You'll be glad you discovered this site. I wish I could be of more help. I can assure you that you will get some very good advice here. The only thing I could offer, is you might want to press your GI to be certain and concise with his diagnosis. He really needs to confirm whether you have Crohn's. Entyvio and Stelara are two fairly newcomers as far as treatments go, but both have shown encouraging results.

Welcome Gachi! I have historically had my Crohn's in my ileum (3 surgeries in that area), as well as other areas in my small intestine.

I unfortunately have been a person on all the available biologics, including the latest... Stelara. Right now, I am on Entyvio which is hard to tell if it is working or not. I had a complicated situation in that they thought I had a bad Crohn's flare and I wasn't responding to biologics, but had a tumor growing in there from 2016 until 2018, so any meds (including Stelara) that I was on in that period didn't do anything... obviously... because it was cancer and not Crohn's.

We are trying Entyvio again, as I did well when I was on Tysabri, it's scarier and less specific sister medicine. Entyvio is what they consider the "gut only" version of Tysabri. Unfortunately, I became JC Virus positive after two years on Tysabri with great success, and had to move away from it. I am taking Entyvio in conjunction with Mercaptopurine, an immuno-suppressive and chemo drug. I have always historically done better with duo-therapy than just on a biologic.

I am still having issues since my last surgery, but my pain doc things some of my motility issues may be due to autonomic neuropathy, from the three surgeries I have had and the chemo I was on for 3 months. I am going to be getting a referral for a neurologist shortly who specializes in that.

Stelara? That's about it, unless you want to give an anti-TNF (Remicade, Humira) another try. Entyvio has a more localised action than Remicade and *may* be safer in the long term, although it hasn't been out for long enough to tell yet. (That said, Remicade has been out for 20 years and no long term side-effects have come to light from that.) At any rate, it's safer being on a biologic and controlling the inflammation than it is to have uncontrolled inflammation.

Oh yeah I forgot about balloon dilation. That's when a balloon is used to stretch a stricture. Not everyone is a suitable candidate, so ask your GI about it. If the stricture is bad, you might need multiple stretches. Also, not to be a downer, but the effects tend not to last forever. However, when it works it can be an alternative to surgery and provide real relief at the same time.

Good luck.