Eliminating drugs.

[Lucky]

Ok, Second post here, hope you all dont mind a few questions. :sign0085: :sign0144:

What would happen if a person was to eliminate the prescribed medication for crohns or ulcerative colitis? I have been without meds for about a year and its starting to get a bit more difficult to deal with the problems. What will happen? I stopped going to to my local doctor thinking I can deal with it but now I am having second thoughts. I was prescribed Sulfasalazine If I remember correctly and it seems to work quite well. As I said, I ran out slightly over a year ago and just decided i would give the natural cure a try. It aint working!

Any info would be great, Thank you, G

 

[jed]

looks like its back to the docs for you

its not that bad, just go back on the drugs to get yourself back into remission, then you can go off them again

dont know of any natural help that'll stop the symtoms sorry.

 

[soupdragon69]

Lucky something for you to think about is Crohns is an autoimmune disease which means your immune system attacks you. That means it never goes away. It can go into remission but you will ALWAYS have the potential for deterioration. It is a disease that peaks and troughs and varies in severity and intensity if that makes sense?

You will generally always need meds (except in cases where medics deem remission is there or you have extremely mild disease) to calm down the inflammatory response.

A good website for basic info is www.crohns.org.uk

I am unsure where you are but this was designed by the gastro teams at my hospital and as a general rule of thumb its very good.

Arm yourself with as much info as possible so you understand your disease process more and are able to start listening to your body. That way you will improve your quality of life and make efforts at maintaining it effectively.

Get to a Gastro consultant for review and find out what your current status is and go from there!

Keep posting here. We will always listen and understand too.

Welcome! Looking forward to seeing you around more.

 

[Lucky]

Someone had mentioned to me that Doctors start patients out on very mild drugs and increase from there depending on the severity of the illness. Is this true? Where do I stand with Sulfasalazine? I dont see many people talking about this med so im afraid the Doctors in my area are behind the times and theres other stuff that would be working better. Oh, I forgot, Im in central MN. USA. Thanks for the welcome, G :smile:

 

[My Butt Hurts]

Where do I stand with Sulfasalazine?

I was on only sulfasalazine for the first few years after dignosis, and it treated me very well. I was in a pretty good remission from just that, with very few symptoms. I had to switch over to a different drug for breastfeeding (asacol) and that's when things started to go down hill. If you are mild right now with your disease, sulfasalazine just might be what you need. Good luck!

 

[D Bergy]

Hello.

Good to see someone else from MN. I would look into Low Dose Naltrexone.
It has almost no side effects and many other benefits besides keeping some people in remission.

I have used it for over a year along with some natural supplements and an experimental antibacterial chemical.

If you are not liking the immune suppressor options LDN may be something to consider.

Dan

 

[Lucky]

I am unsure what an immune suppressor is. It seems as if many of you are quite knowledgeable about the different medications. I have never looked into that much. I know my diet and my habits arent the greatest so up until now, I have always figured there has to be something that will take care of it. Now Im getting nervous because the trips to the restroom are getting more frequent, a lot more frequent, and Im just getting sick of it. Thats how I ended up here. I want to try and find out what meds are doing what.

The sulfasalazine that I was on supposedly was hard on my liver. I assumed that most meds taken as regularly as these would pose a threat to ones liver. Im 37 and had many a night out with the guys drinking when I was younger and I dont want to damage my liver any more by taking meds. I was told that I have a fatty liver from the doc which i think is a nice way of saying the liver is damaged from prior abuse.

Anywho, how tough on the system is alcohol? Chewing tobacco? Jalapeno peppers? lol:voodoo: :ybatty: J/K I know about the peppers, but I dont know about the other two. I would guess its not good but does it make my current problems worse? No matter what Im doing I continue to use the restroom about 6-8 times a day. I have been for about 6 months. When Im on meds, I seem to gain weight and when Im off i get six pack abs. lol Im not really skinny but the difference is obvious. I just loose most the energy I have. Its tough somedays. Im sure most of you are aware of everything Im saying. I have never really talked to anyone that had the same issues as I so I really appreciate everyones helpful advice. Thank you, G