Humira

Some have said that Remicade is suppose to work better for UCers...I have crohn's colitis my crohn's is affecting my colon, with my past history of either being allergic or non-responsive to traditional oral meds I spent 23 years suffering (trying diets and naturals, with some help but still suffering to the point of being mostly housebound) I developed an RV fistula so I was finally "approved" to go on Humira. I have IBS as well (it coexisted with my IBD) Humira put my IBD in remission, my GI even upped my Humira (at my request) to weekly from biweekly and the only side effect I've gotten in from it (since being on it starting in February of 2014) was horrible headaches, but a member here mentioned using antihistamines and it combats the headaches well, I just take the antihistamine before bed the nights I do my shot and no headaches.

The possible side effects and risks are low (if you're concerned about the cancer and Humira induced Lupus) and they monitor your blood fairly closely to keep an eye on your blood.

The damage being done by IBD is far more scary (hence developing a RV fistula in 2013) due to unmanaged inflammation and severe disease activity IMO. Now although the Humira has gotten rid of my inflammation (including in the fistula) I will forever have the fistula tract, it's only the Humira that keeps that nasty fistula from being inflamed along with my colon and rectum (which thanks to IBD I have permanent scaring in my rectum.

The other meds (non-biologics) have plenty of side effects and risks as well and tend to take much longer to kick in and as I mentioned, my body rejected them all.

Doing the shots is a breeze (practice makes perfect, doing it weekly) you can ice the area beforehand (I don't bother) to cut down on the pinch of the little needle in the injection pen and take the Humira out of the fridge and let it get to room temperature to stop the sting that often happens when the med is cold right from the fridge.

Now if only I could get a handle on my IBS then I might be laughing.

You should look through the resources thread at the top of the page. There are many options.

the prednisone also has downside too

Good luck, like I generally say, the pain from IBD alone is about 1000 times worse than that of the Humira injections.

aguywithuc,

I was DX right off the bat when I got sick, in fact it freaked me out when I started coming to support boards and finding out how difficult the proper DX was cuz mine was so slap you in the face obvious.

I have perianal crohn's skin tags, my CD was affecting high up in my small intestine and not just the surface of the intestinal lining but deeper, as well as my colon and it was all patchy inflammation and there was a small patchy part in my rectum as well and also deeper not just the surface layer like it is with UC but just when I was getting my very first scope (a sigmoidoscopy to be exact) done, that GI at the time saw my perianal crohn's skin tags that were misDX as hemorrhoid's and first thing he questioned me about was the tags, I already had told him "I had hemorrhoid's banded and started feeling even worse with my hemorrhoid's and started having terrible D and bleeding and had fissures on the outside of my anus as well" and he said before he even inserted the scope he said..."those are not and were not hemorrhoid's, those are perianal crohn's skin tags and guarantee you have crohn's disease." He proceeded and sure enough he was 100% right... deep patchy inflammation with polyps in various parts of my GI tract that pertain to CD (with the higher small intestinal inflammation)...

after 2 years of it affecting those areas it healed in the small intestines, stayed constant in the colon, on and off in the rectum for the last 23 years until I got on Humira last year.