Flare while on Remicade?? What happens?

Hello~

My husband has been on Remicade for the past 9 months and has done wonderfully.  about 2 months ago, his GI doc increased his dose to 10mg/kg in hopes to increase the interval between infusions.  For the past 2 weeks, my husband has had increased D, lots of pain, and nausea.  I am wondering if anyone out there has experienced this or any type of flare while on Remicade.  If so, what happened?  I really don't want him to stop the Remicade because it has done wonders for his (and my) life.  Any input would be very very helpful!!!!

---Andrea, wife of Crohn's patient

My husband is on Remicade 5mgs every 8 weeks. Last year in October, he developed severe swelling of his knee and his neck and back were also inflamed and he was basically stiff as a board and in a lot of pain. But his bowel was completely normal. We saw his GI, who was astonished to see how much swelling he had, and immediately referred him to a Rheumatologist, who deemed his situation either Crohn's arthritis or reactive arthritis, and put him on steroids 40 mgs. In the meantime, he got tested for Lupus and RA, which thankfully were both negative, and since the steroids alone weren't doing it for him, they moved his remicade to every 6 weeks. And he finally got relief. Once this episode was under control, they moved his remicade infusions back to every 8 weeks.

So, yes, you can have inflammation even when you are on Remicade. If this happens, the docs will either add another med (steroid, imuran, mtx) to the mix and/or increase the frequency and/or the dosage of the remicade infusion.

PV