HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

weaning off imuran

Support Forums
>
Ulcerative Colitis
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 8/19/2019 3:11 PM (GMT 0)
Been in remission for 7 years now using just Imuran and Asacol. All my scopes and bloods have been perfect so my GI is now taking me off Imuran.

For those of you who have been weaned off Imuran because your UC was so good....if your symptoms did come back how long was it before you noticed?
Posted 8/19/2019 3:30 PM (GMT 0)
I flared 6-months after ceasing 6-mercaptopurine (a sister medication to imuran) while in a deep remission. My gasteroenteroligist was frustrated and puzzled as I was only one of two of his patients that this happened to. Back on it today, and back within a remission. I had tapered down the 6MP, from 1.5 pills to 1, to 0.5, to 0 pills a day.

It's a slow acting med, popping a pill today has 6-weeks until it has a direct effect on your body. Similarly, stopping the med has a delayed reaction on your immune system and UC. And it might take a while for untreated inflammation to build to a critical enough mass for flare symptoms to occur, if they are going to.
Posted 8/19/2019 3:40 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks iPoop. That is very interesting.

Were you also on Remicade when you came off the 6MP?
Posted 8/19/2019 4:14 PM (GMT 0)
My GI wants me to taper off as well. He said he sees flares in 30% of his patients when they do taper off, but he thinks it's worth trying. Also, as I have (or had before remission) right sided colitis only, he said he's a little in the dark about the best course of treatment--he said right sided colitis is unusual enough that it's hard for him to say what might happen.
Posted 8/19/2019 4:16 PM (GMT 0)

Charlie789 said...
Were you also on Remicade when you came off the 6MP?

Yes. My gasteroenteroligist's goal was to have me on only remicade to sustain my remission. However, I need at least remicade and 6MP, it would seem.
Posted 8/20/2019 10:45 AM (GMT 0)
IPoop,

Are you suggesting then there is a minimum threshold level of inflammation that needs to be reached before you start feeling UC symptoms (or even before these register on a blood marker reading?)
Posted 8/20/2019 1:19 PM (GMT 0)

Charlie789 said...
IPoop,

Are you suggesting then there is a minimum threshold level of inflammation that needs to be reached before you start feeling UC symptoms (or even before these register on a blood marker reading?)

Yes, minor levels of inflammation present no symptoms in a lot of cases. The inflammation slowly simmers, and spreads in extent and severity until a critical-mass of inflammation is reached, and then the bloody flood gates open up and you/I experience flare symptoms. I've had elevated inflammation levels returned on FCP or CRP inflammation tests, yet felt normal without any UC symptoms before. Often why our docs use those tests to check us once a year, even in a remission to hopefully catch that simmering before the gate open up.
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply