In a pickle: Stelara, Rinvoq, Flaring and o/s trip coming up

Besides Stelara, Xeljanz may be a viable option for you too. For many people (my husband included), he knew within a week that it was working. 7 years later, it’s still working.

Thanks for the replies!

Yep Xeljanz has been on my mind. But as Iam not responding to Rinvoq anymore, i seemed to have failed it rather quickly within just 6 months, Iam not too keen to try another JAK inhibitor just yet. It’s still an option though.

And yeh travel insurance companies can be really shifty. I can’t find a reliable one here in Australia for people with chronic conditions like UC.

Oh and the war! OMG crazy what’s happening over there! No stability in the middle east unfortunately. Things can turn messy and deteriorate rather quickly, a bit like a UC flare up.

Sigh. It is what it is. The news made me anxious tbh so Iam going to try avoid watching the news for a while. Especially while iam taking prednisone as that on its own jacks up my anxiety anyway.

Conquer UC, for future reference when you’re able to take that trip…. you mentioned travel insurance - I’m in Canada and I’ve found that CAA (Canadian Automobile Association) offer much better travel health coverage for 'pre existing conditions' than anyone else I’ve found here. Apparently a sister organization exists in Australia and is called Royal Automobile Association RAA. If their offerings are similar they might be worth a look. For me, the issue was that most insurers have a clause that says your condition must be ‘stable’ for 3 months prior to travel or you’re not covered. Stable is defined as no changes to medication, no worsening conditions and a few more. The CAA insurance has a 'pre-existing condition rider' which changes this to 7 days before instead of 3 months, which I find much easier to manage. Of course there’s extra cost associated with that, and coverage limitations but, it may be worth a look when you’re traveling again. (The only reason I know that RAA exists is that CAA did a customer survey to find out what their clients knew about them, and one question was 'did you know that we offer insurance for Australians?' No I didn’t! 😃. Meanwhile, hope you find a med to work for you.

Conquer UC, full disclosure, I haven’t had to make a claim with them. I did do a lot of careful research though and looked through the policy in detail. I also contacted the company to make sure that what I understood was what it actually meant, which I think is important to do. My focus was entirely medical treatment related (vs cancellation cost recovery) because the cancellation for my trip was insured separately. They were definitely easy to reach and helpful. Hopefully they’re also good when the rubber hits the road! (Fingers crossed we never need to find out though ;)