Am i wasting the enemas?

An important issue would be if you retain a few hours before evacuation on the nights you do not go all night.

Another issue is the frequency vs urgency. Urgency is more closely tied to the area enemas treat. Frequency can be more generally related to the conditions along the colon. Was your diagnosis UP or UC?

Often new drugs are added to existing ones. Humira might not mean initially stopping enemas. If the Humira helps, tapering the enemas may be more likely.

good luck

If you've been at this since May 2018, and are still going 7-8 bms a day then I'd say it is fair to assume you need much stronger medications. I'd give any treatment a fair 2-month chance to work, much beyond that then you need to mix it up and try different things.

I'd go with humira, plus keep taking the mezavant and enemas. With that many bms a day, you should really be on prednisone as a bridge to humira. It might take 6-weeks or more for Humira to kick in and pred can make that wait a lot easier. Cortiment/Budesonide/Uceris/Clipper is meant for only mild to slightly moderate inflammation (less than 6 bms a day). You fit within the severe inflammation category with 6+ bms a day, and prednisone/prednisolone is meant for severe inflammation such as that (I'd recommend 40mgs a day of pred). Humira is also meant for severe inflammation like yours, as well.

If you have 7-8 bms a day then retaining enemas overnight is going to be difficult until you're down to 4-5 bms a day at least. You can do 1/2 the enema, wait 2-minutes and then administer the rest. Make sure you get all of the air out of the bottle before injecting it. Even if you evacuate some of the enema, some remains and will heal you.

Great. I'd just review the enema tips. Maybe adding a few more tricks into your mix can help as well.
1.) Warm the enema up to room temperature before administering. You can put it in a pocket for a while, under an armpit, run hot water over it, etc, etc.
2.) Squeeze all air out before administering.
3.) Insert the tip about an inch or so, too far and you risk letting air in around it.
4.) Administer slowly, if you squeeze that thing hard it is very uncomfortable and you're more likely to evacuate.
5.) You will feel a strong sensation to evacuate the enema for the first minute, ignore it, that sensation quickly goes away.
6.) Lay on your left side for at least 20-minutes. I'll lay on my left side in bed, watch tv, read a book, play games on my phone, etc. If you can, fall asleep on your left side. Bad inflammation means it takes longer for the fluid to be absorbed, it could take 40 minutes, a few hours etc. Having enema fluid sloshing around why you toss and turn is very likely to result in a need to urgently evacuate the enema. Prop yourself in a left-leaning position with a body pillow, or a series of smaller pillows if you're the type to flop like a fish out of water all night (like me). Near-full absorption results in a much longer retention of the mesalamine within. Laying on your right-side with unabsorbed fluid can be uncomfortable. When you lay on your stomach or back, the fluid can pool within the rectum, an area that is rather poor at absorbing liquids (the rest of the left side is a lot better at fluid absorption).

Post Edited (iPoop) : 9/21/2018 7:36:18 AM (GMT-6)