SIMPONI - Anyone using this treatment?

I took it for nine years with great results. Did wonders for my ankylosing Spondylitis and kept the CD in remission.

I assume you have Crohn's disease. Where is the disease located and how severe is it? And how long have you had it? Any surgeries?

Asacol is not an appropriate medication for Crohn's disease. It's approved for mild to moderate ulcerative colitis but was never approved for Crohn's. There is pretty substantial data showing it just doesn't help with Crohn's. Unfortunately many doctors still prescribe it. They shouldn't.

As for failing Humira and trying Simponi, I strongly suggest you try Remicade instead. Since Humira and Simponi are both self-injections, they both may have the same issue of not enough of the medication getting to where it's needed in your body. Being an infusion directly into the bloodstream, Remicade doesn't have that problem. Also, the dosing on Remicade is more flexible - you can increase frequency and dose as needed. There are also better blood tests for checking levels of Remicade and checking for antibodies. Those blood tests for Simponi are still in development as far as I know, and insurance will often balk at them.

The thing is, you failed Humira. You might be a 'primary non-responder' to all the anti-TNF meds. Or it might just be an issue with the pharmacodynamics of Humira. If you take Simponi and fail it too, you won't know whether it's one problem or the other. If you take Remicade and fail, it makes it almost certain you don't respond to this class at all, and you should try something in a different class entirely.

If the Crohn's colitis is UC-like, i.e. doesn't go any deeper than the mucosa, then in theory at least mesalamines like Asacol should work for it. However, if the Crohn's colitis turns into fistulising disease, then sack any doctor who tries to give you Asacol for that, as they don't know what they are doing.

Frankly, if biologics don't work, then diet and exercise are exceedingly unlikely to. I wouldn't be surprised if you have more severe disease than you think you do. I'm not trying to scare you, but I've been in that position of thinking my case was mild compared to other people I read about online. To cut a long story short, it wasn't mild in the slightest. And ultimately none of the meds I tried, including Remicade and Humira, worked for me. But beave is right about the differences between Remicade and Humira/Simponi. If you feel more comfortable trying Simponi, then go for that instead, but in terms of side-effect profiles I doubt there's much difference between Remicade, Simponi and Humira. They're all anti-TNFs, i.e. they all neutralise the inflammatory protein, TNF-alpha.