How long to get a flare under control?

How long does it take everyone to get their flares under control?

My daughter is 17 and diagnosed with Crohns/Colitis in 2003.  Everything was fine taking Asacol until Dec. 05 she started flaring. April 06 they put her in the hospital for 7 days on IV steroids and she left the hospital on 6MP. She finally tapered off of the pred. in July and everything was great.  This past December she started flaring again.  The Dr. took her off of the Asacol thinking that might be affecting her and put her back on the Pred. We tried Rowasa but it was making things worse. Two weeks ago she spent 4 days in the hospital on the IV steroids and that seemed to be helping a little but we decided to start Remicade. She had her first dose two weeks ago on the day that we came home from the hospital.  The first couple of days after that she was really tired and then she snapped out of it for 4 days and was back to her old self.  Much less blood/direhea.  We thought everything was falling into place.  Last Monday evening the blood seemed to be a liitle worse and has been that way ever since.  Last night she was up every hour in the bathroom.  Not alot of direhea but alot of gas and blood and cramping.  Does this all sound normal?  We have our second dose of Remicade in the a.m., do you think there is still hope that it is going to work?  I am just getting really frustrated. She is currently still on 30M of Pred. also.

Sorry this is so long.

She is as careful with her diet as I can make a 17 year old.

She is a very picky eater but I have managed to get her off of fast food and pop for about a month now. As of last Friday I took her off of all dairy products.  When she was a baby she could not drink regular milk so I thought maybe that would be worth a try. It is just hard because everything that she likes is covered in cheese.

She ate spaghetti yesterday so I don't know if that is what kept ker in the bathroom all night.  Not much direhea but mostly gas and blood everytime she goes.

How long to get a flare under control? I have had Severe UC for over 3 years and I often asked myself this questions b/c i would go for months with only bloody mucus. Even when I thought I was controling my UC I would see an occasional trace of blood somwhere and almost always had mucus even on my formed stools. I would have to suggest to your daughter to get lots of rest and eat only food with nutritional value. I mean only eat food that should be beneficial to a body and not food that makes the digestive system do work and not get anything out of it b/c food with no nutritional value only makes the digestive system work even harder in order to eliminate waste.

I want to recommend the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for your daughter. It seems that she is in the throngs of a really bad flare right now, and it doesn't seem that meds are helping at all and food could be causing much of her problems. I have found remission on this diet, after suffering for 9 years and a long 3 month flare. (I was on 40 mg of prednisone for 3 weeks and it wasn't do anything for me. Doc wanted to put me on 6-mp, but i refused to take it.) I have been on the diet for 7 weeks and go to the bathroom once a day.

I am a pharmacy student, and I should be pushing drugs on the general public but I can no way do that because as I have discovered through personal experience and through my own research, drugs(aka meds) do nothing for this disease, at least do not get to the root of the problem.

I do not believe in gimmicks, and I am a skeptic of the latest cures out there but the diet has worked for me. If you are interested, check out the book Breaking the Vicious Cycle.