No Symptoms But Disease Active?!

Dear All,

I often look at the forum and have found it immensely helpful though I have not participated much. I recently had a routine colonoscopy and the biopsy showed that my UC is active. However, I am not showing symptoms.

My UC is limited to the left side. I currently use the Rowasa enemas almost nightly and use Lialda orally. This allows me to live a pretty much normal lifestyle.

However, after this last colonoscopy, which showed the disease to be active, the nurse called me to tell me that the doctor wants to meet with me and that he possibly wants to put me on Immuran.

Do any of you have this situation--where you are taking your medicine and are in remission--but by biopsy it shows that is active?

What would I gain by going to Immuran? At the moment I'm leaning towards not taking the Immuran and continuing my regular meds.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Osval,

I had the same thing happen to me at my last colonoscopy.  The Doctor asked me how I was feeling before I went in and of course I said great. Normal Bm's, no blood, no mucus, no urgency I said to him that I was in remission.  Then they did the scope and it showed active disease throughout, I was so confused as well because I seriously thought I was in remission.

He as well wanted to take the next step and try Imuran, and I said NO WAY not yet.  If I was having symptoms and not able to go about my day normally I might have considered it but I asked him if we could wait it out.  He agreed so I started my enemas and continued with my normal meds and I still feel fine.  I will have to wait again until next scope.

In the past my symptoms were so bad when flaring, it was so strange to feel so good but inside says another story.

I told him that maybe my colon looks so active because of all the prep before the scope, its irritating, it has caused me to bleed in the past and I find it takes a good week or so for things to go back to normal after drinking and flushing out the colon.

If I were you I would listen to your body and not jump the gun yet.

Thank you guys so much for your help!

Quincy: My previous colonoscopy was about three years ago and said that the UC was on the left side. My doc said that the inflammation was "moderately severe." At that time I was not at all consistent with meds. Since then, I have taken the Rowasa consistently; however, I have been taking the Lialda very sporadically.

For this last colonoscopy the doc said that the whole colon looked fine except for "erythema, friability and scattered petechiae in the 30-25 cm." He told my wife that he thinks that the enema is not reaching the upper left bit of the colon and hence the inflammation there. What I don't understand is why he would want to jump to Imuran. To be honest, my lifestyle is pretty good now and I have reached a level of acceptance that I have to use enemas. So I'm concerned about this Imura thing.

Thanks again for your kindness.

Thanks Quincy,

The rectum and lower left side were normal. It's just those 5 cm that show inflammation. On the Rowasa, I would normally go 3-4 times per week. However, when I'm feeling a flare-up coming, I up it to every night until I'm feeling back to normal. What do you think? Is the Imuran worth it?