Fighting an early flair before it gets worse

Hello all,

I'm looking for advice on how to aggressively fight a flair just as it's beginning, in the hopes of keeping it from getting worse and, ideally, turning it around. about a year ago I was on the verge of having j-pouch surgery when all of a sudden I went into remission, and I've been happily enjoying normal once-a-day BMs ever since (which has been amazing). But in the last month or so, things have started to gradually deteriorate. BMs have become more frequent and less formed. I've been feeling little twinges of pain in my gut, and today there was blood on the toilet paper. This was very disheartening after a year of feeling pretty good, so I wanna address it immediately. I was thinking that it might be prudent to go on enemas or start eating really plainly, but I'm wondering if anyone has any other suggestions. I really want to throw everything I can at this now while it might still be easy to reverse.

Thanks is advance for any suggestions!

Definitely rectal meds...which really should have been considered at least 3 weeks ago. But.it's a learning process to recognise symptoms earlier and earlier with each flare (unfortunately it's the best teacher).

By tapering them, you will find a maintenance dosage of which you should remain.....until you get familiar symptoms and up them again.

So....have you ever been on rectal meds? If so, which ones?
If not...why?

hope you can get things back on track.....it can take a while, however.

quincy

I also vote for rectal meds.

I, also, definitely go bland with the foods. I go on a pretty strict diet of soy products, chicken, potatoes and white bread. Also, and this is the hardest for me, no tea or coffee. I'm not sure that it actually fights flairs, but it lets me get through the day.

Question, what drug combo finally sent you into remission? Jealous...

Good luck!

Start the enemas asap rather than thinking about it.  The steroid ones have a definite following....I'm more encouraging of the 5ASA enemas because that's all I've used and have had  long term success with them.  

How many do you have....do you have a repeat on the prescription?

q

I agree - enemas when you first start feeling "off". E's at night and sup's during the day - hit it full force! I usually suggest starting with the 5ASAs and only using steroids when necessary.

I just want to second the mention of accupuncture. I'm flairing right now, have been for the last five days and I am hitting it with pred, rowasa, canasa and my reg high dose of asacol (16 pills a day) and that all def. helps, but lying in accupuncture yesterday was the first time that I could actually feel my pain disipating. I was also able to sleep for 6 hrs last night, which is rare for me on pred.