Magnesium pill

I'm thinking maybe you were having a bad reaction to the steroids or simponi and stopping the meds has stopped the bad reaction. Perhaps if you are getting more sleep, that is helping as well. Otherwise I cannot see how magnesium could possibly have that powerful an effect on UC.

Can you have a colonoscopy to see where your disease is at? I'd be reluctant to start Entyvio if I was virtually in symptomatic remission too.

I had a sigmoidoscopy back in August and it was bad. My entire colon was inflamed and I had ulcers throughout.

I have been through all sorts of meds since I was diagnosed eight years ago. Started with Asacol, wasn't working. Went to Lialda, was fine on that for years and then a year and a half ago that stopped working. Was put on remicade. Developed an allergy to that so they put me on Simponi. Three months into the simponi, they did another sigmoidoscopy and nothing had healed at all from the last time they had done one. Was put on Steroids and continued taking Simponi to get through my wedding in October. After that they took me off of both and pretty much have told me that entiviyo is my last option before surgery.

Part of me wants to just stick with what I am doing now.....it has been so long since I felt like doing anything and right now I can actually go Christmas shopping and to the movies and things like that. The other part of me thinks what if I start feeling horrible again? Should I go ahead and start entiviyo as a precaution. It is so nice right now not to have any intense medications running through my body and not having any awful side effects!

Magnesium is used to induce bowel movements, quite the opposite of what a patient with ibd needs... I'd argue it's not helping your uc at all.

Thanks for all the advice everyone :)

I'm not sure what I will decide to do, but I will say that the magnesium is definitely not hurting me. My bowel movements are very normal and I do not go every hour anymore. So, even though I don't think it makes a lot of sense, I do know that ulcerative colitis is a hard disease to understand and that everyone reacts differently to things, and something that helps someone might not help anyone else. Or it could all be a coincidence and I will eventually revert back to the evilness of the colitis. Or maybe God has answered my prayers and is healing me.

Thanks again for taking the time to listen to this girl :)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

iPoop said...
Medication noncompliance is one of the biggest causes of uc flareups and even hospitalizations. Stopping your medications because you feel good is never a good idea.

I was one of them, I stopped 6-mp and I ended up in the hospital 4 months later for a 23 day stay.

iPoop said...
Magnesium is used to induce bowel movements, quite the opposite of what a patient with ibd needs... I'd argue it's not helping your uc at all.

When I had my surgeries they would give me Magnesium and Potassium to wake my intestine up.

I really doubt it is the magnesium which is helping, but this sort of scaremongering doesn't do any good, imo. Meds don't work for life - if they did, none of us would be here, 'cos we'd have the next best thing to a cure. At best meds buy you more time, but they don't appear to significantly change the course of UC or Crohn's in the long run, i.e. those who gonna surgery are gonna surgery.

I don't know much about Magnesium, except they prescribed it for my husband 's restless legs- and it is easy to be deficient with IBD( fast transit times and less absorption). Entyvio takes a long time to work-I would not wait to get started if it is your last biologic. It you haven't tried Remi or Humira, then I would hold. At least those are reasonably quick to respond to a flare.

i take magnesium, too, but not daily. magnesium citrate and glycinate clean me out too fast so i mainly use it in a homemade lotion or with epsom salts. it has not effected my UC severity at all but my magnesium bloodwork is always normal.

iPoop said...
Medication noncompliance is one of the biggest causes of uc flareups and even hospitalizations. Stopping your medications because you feel good is never a good idea. Uc is an autoimmune disorder where your immune system attacks the lining of your large intestine. Your medications do not cure you, they only treat your symptoms. Stop your medications and then those symptoms will return, it's just a matter of how soon. I would advise you to continue working with your gastroenterologist office and choose some sort of maintenance medication treatment. It may not be entvyio, but should be at least something...

That's true for so many things: diabetes, high blood pressure, depression -- well, just about anything. The longer the time between symptom return and discontinuation of medication, the harder it was to get through my skull that I just had to take my meds, every day, that's all there was to it. When I was first diagnosed with depression, I used to go off my meds all the time because, after all, I was feeling good! I must have this thing beat! Well, it would take three or four weeks before I would crash, get back on the meds, and do it all over again. Until I was on Effexor, with an incredibly short half-life, I had a lot of trouble with noncompliance. I ended up in a place with the Effexor where I learned I just HAD TO take my meds, and I'd do that every morning and then forget about it (as much as possible). I am much more compliant now, just forget once in a while to take my evening asacol and simvastatin.