Hi everybody on Remicade. My son has been on Remicade for a year now and he just had a treatment yesterday. The day before, he seemed like he was having a flare.Tummyache, going to the bathroom a lot, and some blood. Today he's back to feeling great. Does this mean that he's starting to build up antibodies and Remi will start to fail us. Or is there a reason that we do it every 8 weeks ,because it only works for that long?Or, do we need to do the next treatment after 7 1/2 weeks? Advice,please ,you guys are the experts. Cecilia
Failing Remicade?
- Thread starter Max's Mom
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Hey Max's Mom - I do not have any advice for you as I have not yet started my rounds of Remicade but wanted to send you a reply. It may be up to his doctor to determine if he should get doses closer together. i know my doctor needed my weight in order to prescribe the appropriate amount. Maybe there is wiggle room there and maybe the dose isn't strong enough???? sorry i'm not much help. good luck and hope that your son feels better. 
The same thing started happening to me, and the effective period just kept getting shorter and shorter until eventually I was great for 4 weeks and suffering for another 4 weeks. There seem to be three options at this point:
1) Get a double-dose of Remicade once every eight weeks
2) Shorten the time between infusions
3) Add an immunomodulator (e.g., azathioprine) to keep your body from developing antibodies to the infliximab
I ended up doing #3 (the other two options were impossible for insurance reasons) and re-doing the 0-2-6 induction regimen, which fortunately put me back in remission and I've been there ever since.
1) Get a double-dose of Remicade once every eight weeks
2) Shorten the time between infusions
3) Add an immunomodulator (e.g., azathioprine) to keep your body from developing antibodies to the infliximab
I ended up doing #3 (the other two options were impossible for insurance reasons) and re-doing the 0-2-6 induction regimen, which fortunately put me back in remission and I've been there ever since.
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davidr pretty much hit the nail on the head. Those are the options when Remicade isn't as effective as we need it to be. I have my 5th Remicade infusion scheduled for next Tuesday and I'm likely to have to do either #1 or #2 on that list as I've been flaring for more than a month now. I was taking Imuran but it was suppressing my bone marrow and causing me to be anemic so the docs decided it best to discontinue it.
I was on Remicade for a year before it began to fail me. Just keep a watch on his symptoms and if they're indicative of a flare...it's better to be safe than sorry, and I would contact his doctor. After the Remicade I was placed on Humira injections. They didn't work well with my system, as it increased the number and severity of migraines. After two months of that, the med was dc'd, and I went for a year and a half sans meds except for zofran, lomotil and my asthma and migraine meds.
I wish you guys lots of luck, health and happiness.
I wish you guys lots of luck, health and happiness.
Thanks for answering everybody. We have a doc. app. in a couple of weeks,so we'll see what happens then. Davidr,he was on 6-mp, but I asked that we stopped that because the risk of getting cancer was higher then,so I don't know if I want to do that again.If it was me,I would be willing to gamble,but he's so young .
I had the same history with Remicade. Was on it for 2 years and eventually it would only work for a couple of weeks. However, I think the infusion every 8 weeks did help to keep it in check. After they found I developed antibodies to it, the infusions were stopped and I went downhill pretty fast (without the 8 week Remi "boost").
I'm doing great, better than I have in years.
I'm not on any special diet. I tried the gluten free diet a few years ago and didn't see any results. I do try to stay away from artificial sweetners like Aspertame (sp?) because it gives me headaches.
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