Fistula and medications

[Ellag]

Hello all,

I'm new to this site and really hoping to get some of your inputs.
I'm 28 years old and have had Chron's disease for the past 18 years. In the past year it just turned for the worst. I developed a rectal-vaginal fistula which resulted in me getting an ileostomy in November 2009. It has been 8 months with the ostomy and the drainage still continues. Please provide me suggestions as to which medications are good in healing fistulas. I was on Humera but it didn't help. Has anyone done Remicade specifically to treat fistula? Any other suggestions?

Thanks so much!

 

[Lisa]

Ella - I had the same type of fistula - owent over 2 years with it - mine closed up QUICKLY once I started Remicade - in fact, having the fistula(s) was one deciding factor to start the treatment......

 

[My Butt Hurts]

I am on remicade too, since November 2008 and haven't had any problems in 1 1/2 years with my fistulas. One is perianal, and one is rectovag.

 

[Ellag]

thank you so much for your posts. I'm going to discuss my options with my GI tomorrow. Did you start Remicade after the fistula or before. I took Remicade approximatly 3 - 4 years ago, but wasn't really taking it regularly and when i heard about Humera I switched as a result of it being more convenient.

 

[CodeBrown]

Guys...how did you know you had a rectovag fistula (how was it diagnosed)?

 

[My Butt Hurts]

Guys...how did you know you had a rectovag fistula (how was it diagnosed)?

Here is a recent thread with some discussion about that -
http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=10818

Hope that helps =)

 

[Lisa]

Ella - I started remicade about 2 years after developing the fistulas.......

CB - mine was fairly obvious- poo coming out of the wrong plane (YUK!)...but I also had imaging done - barium enema etc which showed them.......

 

[Cookie]

Remicade did not help my recto-vaginal fistulas. The only thing that ever helped were Cipro and Flagyl. They did not close the fistulas, but they kept them from getting inflamed and sore. Ultimately, I had a flap advancement surgery (twice) to close them, but now I have another but it does not bother me the way the others did, so I just tolerate it.