Been on prednisone a week- fissures, urgency- advice please!

[Elizajp]

So I have been in a flare for about a month after four years of basic remission (due to diet changes and supplements.) the flare came on pretty quickly. Tried to treat it conservatively with diet and supplements (scd/paleo, probiotics, etc.) but the flare progressed. GI put me on Uceris- didn't seem to make a difference. Started on 40mg Prednisone last Sunday. I definitely saw improvement (joint pain went away, urgency went down from every two hours to every three to five or even six hours, blood also basically went away) but I'm still not doing great. Still have to go to the bathroom four- five times in the night and a bunch of times in the morning. The thing is, when I go, it's becoming more formed, but it's almost like I just have to go a bunch of times to get it all out (sorry TMI.) it's all complicated by the fact that I have a bunch of extremely painful fissures and skin tags from all the diarrhea over the past month. I've lost about fifteen pounds over the month (already skinny and can't afford to lose much)- scd diet restrictions aren't helping the weight loss. So here are my questions:

1. Does anyone have experience with prednisone taking awhile to kick in? This is day 6. Like I said, I noticed a difference, but not completely better. For what it's worth, I also have no side effects- wondering if that means the drug hasn't kicked in yet?

2. My other concern is how incredibly painful the fissures are. The whole nighttime/morning bathroom routine is hellish. If not for those, I would consider myself slowly getting better. But I'm also not putting on the weight. I'm just trying to figure out if it's time to get concerned and talk to the GI about other options or if I should hold out some with the 40mg.

3. Lastly, my GI wasn't actually the one who diagnosed the fissures. He was out of town so I went to a CRS. She didn't do an internal exam because I was so sensitive, but said from the external exam that there was nothing worrisome, just a lot of irritation/skin tags. She prescribed the blood pressure cream. I haven't been able to put it up there because it hurts too much so I've been putting it on the outside. Anyway- just trying to figure out if the fissure situation is normal considering the circumstances, or if and when I need further treatment for that. I figured the steroid would help, but I guess nothing will really heal until I stop going so much.

Sorry for so much information! I haven't been sick in awhile so I'm kind of confused and overwhelmed.

 

[oathy]

Hi.
I really am sorry its terrible having this problem when the toilet really doesn't help matters. A lot of my issues are very low down It got so bad they wanted me to have a colostomy and had fistulas and fissures operated on its left me with an Anal sinus for 13 years that wont heal.

what I find the best is something Called Xyloproct it really does numb all that area very much like a visit to the Dentist. I also use an applicator and use something like AquaGel (like KY Jelly) before going to the loo even though I haven't had formed stools in years it does help try and ease the pain.

I found things like predfoam made matters worse the predfoam burns like Crazy but I did find the Colifoam more cooling but the risk is longer term usage can increase the risk of colitis forming so short sharp bursts but it does ease things down a touch.

Its helped being on the Humira for me but when I do need to take steroids I find by day 8-10 any bleeding finally stops.

If you can try something with Lidocaine I think it might help in trying at least easing some of the pain when you goto the toilet and also will work if you just apply some on the tissue and use when cleaning up down there.