Hello everyone -
Newbie here. I was diagnosed with Crohn's this past January and just discovered this forum in the last few days.
A brief summary of my history:
In hindsight, things began changing for me in late October or 2010. I noticed a decreased appetite and some pain in the bathroom. By late November I was starting to feel pretty terrible. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who refuses to go to the doctor, so it wasn't until mid-December that I finally relented to my wife's pleading and went to the doc. Long story short, my family physician referred me to a colon/rectal surgeon, but I couldn't get in to see him until after the first of the year. Not a very pleasant holiday season! The good news is, during a time when I typically gain a lot of weight, I actually lost 25lbs.! I was feeling horrible and was in pretty bad shape by that time, however.
Finally went to see the colon/rectal surgeon on January 4th and he sent me to the hospital immediately; as in, my appointment with the doctor was at 10:00 AM and before noon, I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV. I stayed there for 9 days, where they got me rehydrated (I'd had diarhhea for 6 weeks at that point) and did the barium CT scan and a colonoscopy, both of which confirmed the Crohn's. They put me on total bowel rest for the majority of my stay, so I was fed via a PICC line until the last couple days in the hospital when they allowed me a liquid diet and then finally soft foods.
After my stay, they sent me home on asacol, dicyclomine, and predisone. I started the prednisone at 30mg/day and tapered that down by 10mg each week. I did great at the higher dosages, but once I dropped down to 10mg/day, I started to feel like crap again.
At that point, the surgeon suggested I was likely steroid dependent, so he referred me to a GI. I first saw him in mid February and just this past Monday, I did my "loading dose" of Humira. That involved giving myself four injections in the stomach with the Humira Pen, which turned out to be no big deal at all. I'm still taking the asacol, dicyclomine, and 10mg/day of prednisone. They're supposedly going to wean me off of the prednisone very soon, though I'm not sure about the dicyclomine and asacol. I go back to see the GI next Monday so I'll know more after that visit, I guess.
Right now I'm feeling pretty good - I'd say maybe 85-90% of my best. I'm anxious to ditch the prednisone so I can see how I feel with that out of the picture. Hopefully the Humira will work for me. I'm much more comfortable with that idea now, having given myself the injections. I was apprehensive about those, but they are truly not a big deal.
Glad to find this forum. I'll be around!
Chris
Newbie here. I was diagnosed with Crohn's this past January and just discovered this forum in the last few days.
A brief summary of my history:
In hindsight, things began changing for me in late October or 2010. I noticed a decreased appetite and some pain in the bathroom. By late November I was starting to feel pretty terrible. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who refuses to go to the doctor, so it wasn't until mid-December that I finally relented to my wife's pleading and went to the doc. Long story short, my family physician referred me to a colon/rectal surgeon, but I couldn't get in to see him until after the first of the year. Not a very pleasant holiday season! The good news is, during a time when I typically gain a lot of weight, I actually lost 25lbs.! I was feeling horrible and was in pretty bad shape by that time, however.
Finally went to see the colon/rectal surgeon on January 4th and he sent me to the hospital immediately; as in, my appointment with the doctor was at 10:00 AM and before noon, I was lying in a hospital bed with an IV. I stayed there for 9 days, where they got me rehydrated (I'd had diarhhea for 6 weeks at that point) and did the barium CT scan and a colonoscopy, both of which confirmed the Crohn's. They put me on total bowel rest for the majority of my stay, so I was fed via a PICC line until the last couple days in the hospital when they allowed me a liquid diet and then finally soft foods.
After my stay, they sent me home on asacol, dicyclomine, and predisone. I started the prednisone at 30mg/day and tapered that down by 10mg each week. I did great at the higher dosages, but once I dropped down to 10mg/day, I started to feel like crap again.
At that point, the surgeon suggested I was likely steroid dependent, so he referred me to a GI. I first saw him in mid February and just this past Monday, I did my "loading dose" of Humira. That involved giving myself four injections in the stomach with the Humira Pen, which turned out to be no big deal at all. I'm still taking the asacol, dicyclomine, and 10mg/day of prednisone. They're supposedly going to wean me off of the prednisone very soon, though I'm not sure about the dicyclomine and asacol. I go back to see the GI next Monday so I'll know more after that visit, I guess.
Right now I'm feeling pretty good - I'd say maybe 85-90% of my best. I'm anxious to ditch the prednisone so I can see how I feel with that out of the picture. Hopefully the Humira will work for me. I'm much more comfortable with that idea now, having given myself the injections. I was apprehensive about those, but they are truly not a big deal.
Glad to find this forum. I'll be around!
Chris
Once you do start to taper off of Prednisone, don't be discouraged if you started to experience symptoms that seem like you are going backwards. Some people have a harder time weaning off of it and just have to taper a lot more slowly. Not saying you will definitely be one of those people, but I also know it can be scary when you've had such good health and then all of a sudden things don't seem to be going right. Hopefully, you won't have to worry about that though. 
