Advice For Newbie To Remicade?

I was on Remicade for a while. I did not experience any nausea. What kinda freaked me out was that it was administered in an oncology lab. Wasn't prepared for that sobering atmosphere even though I have had family experiences in large teaching hospital environments. Anyway, the primary reason they use an infusion room for Remecaid was because in "some" people it can cause a severe allergic reaction and that could require immediate emergency care. I never experienced any reactions either. I just built up antibodies to it and had to switch over to Humira. My drip usually took me 2 hours start to finish. I'd take a book or just nap through it most of the time. I liked to have mine done on Friday afternoons because some of the side effects are flu like symptoms..cold, low grade fever, body aches. If I had it done on Friday, usually the side effects were over with by Monday and I was human enough to work. I can understand you're hesitation in telling your friend about this sight just yet. He needs to have a better understanding of his disease and most of us hear have been like bloodhounds searching out information for ourselves. As you may or may not be aware...there are varying degrees of CD from individual to individual. Some cases are mild, some moderate to severe (me) and some severe. Your friend needs to be reassurred of this and that everyone responds to treatments differently. He may be young, however, rest assurred he needs to be educated about his options in his healthcare, because no one knows his body better than himself and waiting around for health professionals to let you in on the lastest & greatest news doesn't always happen. Be supportive of him also when he thinks he's run across a medical "cure all". There isn't one yet that I know of and some therapies can actually make you worse because of drug interactions and the like. Final peice of advice, tell him ALWAYS check behind the product(s) he's interested in trying and find out WHO is funding the source of information. There is a lot of not so crediable information out there and this site helps weed through the most wacked out ones just by us sharing our stories. Thanks for being the friend that you are and not to lessen your plight with UC but remember, while his disease may be somewhat related they are definetly two different diseases with different courses of therapy. Hopefully your explorations will support you both!

Hey there, I'm from the UK and have some experience with the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) and the workplace. It saved me my job!! I worked part time and I was protected by it after a year, theres varying lengths of time depending on job and type of employment etc. so if say you're in a probationary period your job won't necessarily be protected but reasonable adjustments are still supposed to be made for you by the employer. At my job (I worked in a well known retail store) you were only 5% non-attendance before disciplinary procedures started. (I never really took off more than the odd day here and there, but as a part timer 1 day of the 2 I worked a week would account for a large percentage) I was facing disciplinary about non attendance so eeek job was on the line, when thankfully my mum who runs her own office told me about the DDA. A couple of calls by my manager to human resources told them that as I'd been employed for a over a year dismissal wasn't an option, and they couldn't even discipline me on non-attendance as they'd been aware from my first interview that I had Crohn's! And then I had to have an interview with HR so they could make any adjustments I may need. All i requested was to be able to keep bottled water on the shop floor as I had an issue with dehydration (that was to the companys benefit as well so I didn't have to keep leaving the floor to get a drink so they'd get more man hours from me!) and to be able to go the toilet as needed without a big deal being made of it and to wear non uniform black trousers as the style we had to wear sat quite high up and put pressure on my stomach where the Crohn's is so they let me wear ones of my choice which were lower cut. With remicade, I'm on that also, I find the doctors in the UK tend to take the "suck it and see" approach, give one dose and see how you get on with it and will then give you another when symptoms return if it got you well. I found that good as first time round it took 2 years for the symptoms to return without having to have it repeatedly every 8 weeks which would have been unnecessary for me and unnecessary cost for the NHS as well! First time I had it, no side effects at all except a bit of tiredness followed by total hyperness the next day and the day after all physical signs of inflammation I'd had in my joints had gone and my stomach was pretty much 100% better, it worked so fast and so well. The nacc website has some good leaflets you can download, so maybe he could print one off and give it to the employer to read? I know how hard it can be trying to explain it. heres a couple of links which may be useful regarding rights and employment. The key is declaration, if its declared at interview or on diagnosis then should be safe! http://www.nacc.org.uk/downloads/factsheets/employment.pdf   us/business.asp">http://www.dwp.gov.uk/about us/business.asp