Just wanted to reiterate some of the aforementioned suggestions! Your doctor should probably start tapering you off of prednisone, especially at somewhat of a high dose; this may take a little while. Some people when tapering prednisone get flare up symptoms again; many times people with severe disease who become steroid dependent like this choose to go on an immunomodulator/biologic, to help stop the symptoms and allow them to easily taper down and eventually leave the steroids. If you begin 6MP or Imuran, it will take 3-6 months to work, and you've already been on prednisone for a while, so your doctor may be suggesting the biologic as it will act faster. The 6MP and Imuran are usually given to help wean people off of steroids who are either stable or don't have too many symptoms on them (and can wait for that time), but those who are in too much discomfort may have to go to a biologic first due to speed.
Remicade does have a better track record for UC overall than Humira, so I would suggest asking about
that, but for some people it doesn't work and they find that Humira/Simponi, etc. work, since we are all so individual. There is also the new biologic Entyvio now. Many GIs choose to put their patients on 6MP/Imuran while they are on Remicade/Humira as they sometimes work better together, but I personally chose not to because of the risk Katmom posted (I'm right around your age too). I may reconsider this based on my next scope, still have to make a decision! Regardless of which treatment path you choose, you should make sure you get your routine bloodwork and monitoring done, just to stay on top of things! And if you do some day start 6MP/Imuran, you may also want to ask to be tested for TPMT enzyme, as this may help your dr in calculating an optimal dose. I am happy to hear that you've stopped the bleeding, and I hope you are well soon and can start college feeling healthy!
Post Edited (teddy92) : 6/22/2014 11:34:08 PM (GMT-6)