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Humira users - need advice, please.

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Crohn's Disease
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Posted 2/13/2012 9:57 PM (GMT 0)
I've been taking Humira for a little over a year now since I was released from my last hospital visit in January 2011. Of course, my first injections were so, so painful and while every following injection was painful I found that I got used to them and the pain was less and less and I never had any side effects.

In the past couple of months the injections are hurting more than ever (or, at least, like the first time...) and now I'm beginning to get big red welts and side effects. Achiness, nausea, itchiness (at the injection site and feet & hands), jabby pains, and EXTREME fatigue. As far as I can tell, it is still working as far as the ulcerative colitis is concerned but they're really making me feel terrible post-injection.

Has anyone else had this sort of thing happen? Where your side effects & pain began mild (or non-existent) on Humira and then every injection afterwards seem to get worse and worse?

It seems like it should go the opposite, right?
Posted 2/13/2012 11:09 PM (GMT 0)
I know the feeling.
I assume that you are using the pen to inject humira, you can switch to pre filled syringes that are not as painful to use since you can controle the speed of the med going in.
about the red spots they are normal.
but you can try taking some allergy meds one hour or so before injecting that should help.

I have always found Humira to be a pain to use but boys does it work well on my CD :)
Posted 2/14/2012 3:46 AM (GMT 0)
I too, find the syringe to be far less painful. You can push it in really slow so it doesn't burn as much. Also, I started having more itching and welts around the injection, and my dr suggested taking benadryl and/or zantac prior to injections. (I don't remember why, but zantac helps the allergic response somehow) Maybe this is something you could talk to your doctor about. Also, I found that caladryl works much better than cortisone for the redness and itching around the injection site.
Posted 2/14/2012 5:04 AM (GMT 0)
I do the pen & like it. Never have done the syringe because I like that the pen is quick and I can't jerk it out of my stomach when I feel the painful medicine going in. What helps me with the pain is laying it out on the counter about 30 minutes before getting it and putting an ice pack on my stomach for about 15 minutes before the pen goes in. It helps with the bruising some(I bruise easily & bad).

As far as side affects go, I'm still kind of new to Humira and have only had 5 doses and with each dose I notice the fatigue, headaches and mild stomach pain afterwards for about a week. I did read abdominal pain is a side affect(I'm not in remission for Crohn's but I can tell the difference between my usual flare pain and humira pain in the abdomen).

I agree with monkiray about the allergy medicine. I usually take some benedryl before mine to be on the safe side since I had reactions with Remicade.
Posted 2/14/2012 4:16 PM (GMT 0)
For the year that I was on humira, i self-injected too. You'll get much less pain. I only stayed on it for a year however, before i wound up on tysabri. I feel like (well, anecdotally from these boards) that the response to humira is not as durable as some of the other meds.
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