Uceris-continue? or switch to Pred?

I am absolutely miserable. I am on Uceris, for the 4th week, and am off work again. I'm a teacher and it's very difficult to be off because of all the work it takes to prepare for a sub and then catch up on when I return. Nevertheless, I could not drive to work today. I'm usually stuck on the pot and can't stop going to the bathroom but today, I'm nauseous, dizzy, and weak. I feel so helpless. I've been on a restricted diet for months, I'm on the enemas, I was home resting all weekend, all last week, and the weekend before. I don't know what else to do. I can get on Prednisone and hope that it doesn't do too much permanent damage but I'm trying not to do that. I've been on it a few times before and I know it's not safe to be on again. But I feel like I'm at the end of my options here.

Anyone else had success with Uceris or that can encourage me to stay on it and hope?

-jennifer

I've been feeling the same way about Uceris mysel. Andrina and I were both complaining earlier that it doesn't seen to work as well as we had hoped. However, when I think back to how I felt last week, there is improvement. The mornings though are still a problem in terms of urges and needing to go somewhere and trying to get off the toilet. Sorry to hear about you having to call off work especially teaching. My symptoms began while long term subbing and it was horrible.

Thanks for responding. I'm on Symtax Duotab, 2x a day, I take a slew of supplements-glutamine, fish oil, enzymes before eating, folic acid, probiotics. I've tried living clay (you drink it) and haven't noticed a difference.

I've been off milk, soy, and gluten for awhile. When I cheat with gluten I notice an immediate reaction (when I'm having a flare). I say restricted diet meaning, I'm not eating anything that might aggravate me. I eat salmon, chicken sometimes, I juice the few fruits and veggies I eat, I drink water, hot tea, etc. And no, the doctor never discusses nutrition with me-only more meds.

I've had UC for 20 years and I've been one of the lucky ones to have been in remission for a lot of that time-without maintenance meds. Right now, I just want to get better enough to feel slighly better. I'm majorly depressed, which is a brand new thing for me, and I have zero energy.

I'm so against prednisone though. It's so bad for you. The doctor seems willy-nilly about getting you to take it but I have to be really, really sick to take it . I think I currently am that sick but I've been trying to hold on to hope that this Uceris would work. I am better than I was but I've got a long way to go to be healed.

I watched Food Matters, and other docs, about how your body will heal if you provide it with the right stuff. But inflammation is serious stuff and I feel like western meds are necessary once you're this sick.

I'm seeing my dr tomorrow and they've called the prednisone in. I'm going to wait another day till I get on it.

I'm surprised to hear people have been on both Uceris and Pred at the same time. My dr said I have to get off Uceris. They're both steroids so, I would think that would cause major side effects to be on both.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that your colon is inflamed and that if you just give it time to heal your problems will be over. Unfortunately that does not address the reason why your colon got inflamed in the first place. UC is an autoimmune disease where your immune system mistakenly attacks either your colon or something in your colon, causing inflammation. Most of the treatments center around either helping stop the inflammation or weakening your immune system so that it is no longer doing damage to your colon, giving it time to heal. The reason UC is a chronic autoimmune condition is that healing the colon only works to heal the colon, it does not fix the real problem. As soon as you stop with anti-inflammatories treatments or immunosuppressive drugs, even if your colon is totally healed, your immune system will go right back to attacking your colon until before long you are back to square one all over again. That is why it is important to always have some form of maintanence plan in place and it has to be a maintanence plan that actually works. You can't just do medical treatments, heal your colon, stop medical treatments, and then think that a restrictive diet is going to keep you in remission. That would only happen if it was the restrictive diet that helped you attain remission in the first place. If it was actually the meds that put you into remission and not the diet, you will not stay in remission from dropping all meds and just going with a restrictive diet, unless that was what helped you get to remission in the first place.