Remicade - Antibiotics?

Adding a second immuno while taking Remicade is called combination therapy. This practice is well accepted, as there's strong evidence that it reduces the liklihood of developing antibodies to Remicade. The benefits far outweight the risks. Leaving a disease like Crohn's to rage out of control untreated would be a very serious mistake.

The side effects to some of our meds are real, but most of the negative effects are documented on considerably higher doses for other medical treatments. When Remicade first came out it had a black box warning. It's now been around for some 20 years and been well received.

As for antibiotics. You can be on them, but it will need to be between infusions. The issue is, they won't give you an infusion if you have an infection.

I’ve been there. I waited to take the more powerful medications for various reasons including the logic you express. It’s not worth it. It’s really hard to see it in the moment and sometimes I think I had to go through the bad stuff to realize. I ended up with many of the complications that go along with under treated disease (fistula, strictures) not to mention on prednisone about once a year and started have bone density loss from that. A lot of the problems that come with crohns you don’t foresee until it’s too late. I am now on remicade and 6mp and have had very few issues with it over the last 3 years. My doctors monitor for side effects fairly closely especially in the beginning, addressed issues quickly, and that helped to reduce some of the anxiety around being on it.