Remicade failed me, Simponi is next

Remicade worked for me for almost 5 years before it recently failed me. I tried Humira for over 3 months and that really never worked at all, I even tried double doses and weekly doses.

I started Simponi 3 weeks ago and it worked great after my first loading dose but after about a week I started to experience a flare and it's only gotten worse since then. I suspect that I may have contracted c.diff within the last couple of weeks since my symptoms are different than my normal flares, I have much more gas, liquid D, a weird urgency with a different smell.

I had an appointment with my IBD specialist yesterday, my symptoms were so bad that I requested Prednisone and a c.diff test. I'm probably going to increase my dose of Simponi to a double dose every 28 days.

I was really optimistic about Simponi especially after my first week, I felt great and almost normal again and was able to run errands and do normal things with confidence that I didn't need to find a bathroom in less than a minute. I was never optimistic about Humira, I never really had a good response on it.

The Simponi injections are really easy, you don't even feel the injection because the needle is so small.

I will tell you that I had to jump through flaming hopes with my insurance company to get the Simponi approved because it is not on my insurance formulary since it was recently approved. It took almost 2 weeks to get them to approve it. They also required a Hep-B test and a recent TB test prior to me getting the Simponi. I'm sure the fact that I tried Humira and it didn't work that was the main reason they approved the Simponi.

I am still optimistic about Simponi but it will probably be a maintenance drug for me; I just added 60mgs of Prednisone to get the flare under control and it has made a big difference in the last 24 hours. If I have c.diff then that would explain a lot of my symptoms.

I have not tried Cimzia but that is very similar to Humira and my GI said if the Humira didn't work then Cimzia probably wouldn't be that affective either.

Call the Simponi-one Support line, they will help you with the co-pay assistance if you need it...they are very professional and offer a needle recycling program for free.

I might have been the first person approved for Simponi and UC for Blue Cross and Blue Shield....their computer system kept rejecting the loading dosage (2 pens) which is the proper loading dose for an IBD patient. They would only approve 1 pen which is the maintenance dosage (which was no problem in their system, but 2 pens would get rejected). The appeals processes and some conference calls got that taken care of.

The injection is very simple, I liked the Simponi injects more than the Humira injections. They gave me the needles, not the auto-injectors for the Simponi.

Good luck with the Simponi, for me it was a much better drug than the Humira....even though I am back on Pred right now, like I said previously I am still very optimistic about the Simponi