Humira Bloodwork Results

I loved Entyvio, but it does take a while to work so be patient and stay on Uceris through the loading doses for best chance of success. Seems like Entyvio works best if it has help at the beginning.

So I ended up doing my Humira shot yesterday (the one I was supposed to do Saturday) even though I don't feel it's doing anything, but I was feeling crappy and already had it sitting in my fridge, so I figured I would just do it. I also was able to hold in an enema last night for about an hour. I had not been able to retain enemas for the previous 5-6 days or so and I felt like that was probably contributing to my symptoms not improving or even getting a bit worse. Today so far I feel good. I had one BM this morning that was painful, but since then I've felt fine....way better than I have in the past week or two...like completely normal since early this morning. So now I am again so confused. My GI is squeezing me in on Monday to discuss switching to Stelara or how to move forward. I still don't think the Humira is just suddenly working. I feel like I'm feeling better because I was able to retain my Rowasa last night. I'm still on Uceris.

That's kind of my feeling, too! Lol. Totally confusing! Thank you.

Update: My GI squeezed me in for an appointment this afternoon. First, I absolutely love my GI. He is awesome. He again spent 30 minutes talking with me. He has his staff double-book him to squeeze me in so I get to see him and never have to see a nurse practitioner, and somehow the wait time is still super short (I waited less than 5 minutes today). He always listens to me and lets me have the final say in what medicines I want to try, etc. He's also super funny and personable. And when I told him that sports medicine doctor told me last month that he didn't know if I should ever run again (after my stress fracture and because of the osteoporosis diagnosis), my GI said he, "excuse his language," thought that was "horsecrap." It was pretty funny. Lol. Ok, I'll stop bragging about my doctor.

So, my plan is to try Humira weekly for a month, then get off the Uceris and see if I'm better. If not, I'll switch to Stelara or Xeljanz at that point. He gave me the option of switching medicines right now or even of going back to Remicade (although he said that probably wouldn't work again). He also said I could stay on Uceris forever, but that that probably wouldn't be the best idea (and I don't want to be on steroids anymore than necessary). I really don't have high hopes that weekly Humira will do anything, but I'm feeling pretty good now on the Uceris again, so I may as well try the increased Humira dose. He said even though my bloodwork showed therapeutic trough levels, that those values aren't really set in stone for UC, and it could be that more of medicine could help me. In theory, since Remicade seemed to help me, Humira should as well. I haven't seen blood the last several days, and I've only been having 3-5 BMs a day, so it hasn't been bad.

He also said he wasn't sure if my foot stress fracture really had anything to do with prednisone or not. He said those are not usually the type of fractures associated with prednisone usage. So maybe it was just some kind of a weird fluke. I went out for a short walk today and did not break any bones -- yay. Haha.

It feels really good to have a plan! Thanks all for listening and all the support.

Thank you! Good question about the bloodwork (because it also is a super expensive test! I just paid over $300 for it!). I feel like he meant the blood test values aren't an exact science and are more of a guideline, but some people with UC may need more of the medicine. I don't know if they tested it for each disease or how they even came up with the values. What he said made me think maybe those Humira trough levels were studied for Crohn's or RA and not UC, but he didn't explicitly say that. He also said Remicade is easier to get a therapeutic dose in someone because it's an infusion.

I didn't even think about Uceris not working as well over time. Hopefully it keeps working well enough for me to find another med that works. He told me Stelara takes 8 weeks to work, too. I know Keith said it worked right away for him though.

Good to know your doctor said something similar! Thank you for the info.

Thank you, PA! That makes sense what you said about the Remicade, too -- thanks for sharing that insight. I hadn't really thought about all of that. I agree, will save that as a last resort. I like that he gave me so many options, told me what he would do if he were me, but then let me decide.