Some days, I think my body is bipolar...

I am not even kidding!

First, though.....I'm pregnant again! I am 8 weeks, we've been monitoring hcg for 4 weeks now and it's doubling correctly. At 6 weeks we had an ultrasound and saw the heartbeat, so we're on track for a good pregnancy.

I got Remicade last week on Thursday afternoon. Friday I started having hives again and had them all weekend through this morning. But it was my birthday Wednesday and we went out to eat. There were leftovers I ate on Thursday, so it could have been one of the spices in the food. Next time I get Remi I am going to eat things that I know are safe foods for the few days before and after.

But since Friday I've had a low-grade fever (as high as 100.9F), which isn't super high, but considering I don't get fevers with influenza or even abscesses, it's always a concern. I know my temp can go up from pregnancy, but since my normal is 97, it shouldn't be hanging out around 100. But then an hour later it'll go back down to 98.6, then up again. It's been doing it still today. I called my OB and the triage nurse doesn't think it's pregnancy related. So I called my PCP who said to call my GI and the GI nurse will talk to the GI tomorrow.

Any thoughts? I try not to panic, but I think being pregnant is going to make me more of a paranoid hypochondriac than I normally am!!

And happy birthday!

Firstly, congratulations on the pregnancy!

Secondly, I've been having low-grade fevers recently. I'm deffo not pregnant and I'm not on any Crohn's meds. Let me know what your GI says! Thanks :p

Hey, congratulations to you and Happy Birthday! I wish you the best of luck and I hope your body calms it down!

Congratulations scifigal!!!!! Hopefully that fever is nothing and all goes well for you and baby!!

Still have hives, so I'm drinking a bottle of liquid benadryl a day, lol.

I still have the low-grade fever, and my OB called yesterday evening to say that my labs looked okay except my WBC is a little elevated at 11.8 or so. I have an appt with my GI on Tuesday so I was going to talk to him about it then (since, once again, his nurse never called me back when she said she would).

So I think I might have some sort of little infection going on, just not sure what. I'm not really having any cold or flu symptoms, my stomach isn't upset (well, anymore than usual with Crohn's and morning sickness).

I know pred can artificially raise your WBC, but I was under the impression that Remicade would keep things low and lower your body temp anyway.

Thanks everyone. I'm glad to see my GI tomorrow, because my temperature hit 101 today. This makes 11 days of a fever.

Thanks. He was kind of helpful, but not much. Of course, there was no fever when I went in - a nice, health 98.3. *sigh* He said without any other symptoms (like cough or runny nose, or a lump forming, or localized pain, etc.) that it was almost impossible to tell. He did say that unlike prednisone, Remicade should not artificially raise my WBC. He also said that Remicade can prevent you from getting a fever when you're sick, so that might explain the up-and-down. He said if it continues, he'll refer me to an infectious disease doctor, but he thinks it's just a little viral something that I'm just not able to fight super fast.

He also said that Quest Labs now does tests for Remi antibodies, not just Prometheus, so he ordered them to see if the hives are coming from that or not. Hopefully insurance covers it. I can't imagine why they wouldn't, though. But he said if it is Remi, we'd then talk about moving to Entyvio (I think, I don't think it was Cimzia; whichever of the two in an injection, not an infusion). I really would like for this NOT to be Remicade. I have no desire to give myself a shot (I made my husband give me my epi pen, lol) and I don't want to switch to an unknown while pregnant. Even though Entyvio (or whichever one he said) doesn't cross the placental barrier, if I had a bad reaction, that would be bad.

So we'll just see! I also am trying to decide how to do my Remi infusions (provided I stay on them). Right now I'm every 6 weeks, and if I stay on that schedule, I'll have one due at 37.5 weeks. So I would do a c-section the day before and just do the infusion the next day in the hospital (which is what I did with my first pregnancy). However, my GI reminded me that Remi can slow healing. We discussed doing them every 6.5 weeks to push it out a little, but I already get symptoms the day or two before, so that has me nervous I would flare and go into labor.

The other option is to do infusions every 5.5 weeks, which would bring the infusion at 37.5 weeks closer to 34 or 35 weeks, have a c-section at 39 weeks (he said that there isn't a huge amount of Remicade in the baby's system no matter when your last infusion was, based on a PIANO study, or that it doesn't affect the baby all that much after birth) and then heal for a week or two and come in for the next infusion.

I am not sure which option I want to do, but I need to decide soon so that I can change the dates I've already scheduled. Part of my concern is that with my first pregnancy, my daughter wasn't growing very fast at the end because of my Crohn's absorption issues (even though I was in remission and by that point only throwing up once or twice a day). They said that regardless of the Remicade infusions, they probably would have done a c-section at 37 weeks because she would grow faster on the outside instead of the inside. She was only 4 lbs 8 oz at 37 weeks, and that's considered full term.

So just a decision to make. Lots of prayer; I worry about making the wrong one.