Hi Gracie, basically when you treat Crohn's you have three broad categories of drugs used for treatment.
First, you have cortisteroids like entocort and prednisolone which are used to fight inflammation short term, but should not be taken long term. You normally start with a high dose such as 40mg to 50mg if you got big problems and then lower it step by step mostly on a weekly basis.
Imuran (that's the brand name, the drug is azathioprine) or 6mp is an immunsuppressive drug that is used in long-term management of Crohn's and is effective (gets them into remission without significant symptoms) in about 1/3rd of the patients. It only kicks in fully after 2-3 months, so it still might work for you as you haven't been on it very long. One important thing is the correct dosage, it's about 2mg to 2.5mg per kg body weight. The daily dose should be split into half in the morning and half in the evening. How much do you take?
Lastly, the most effective drugs to treat Crohn's are biologic TNF-a blockers. The most common one used in Europe is infliximab (remicade is the brand name). The other common one used is adalimumba (humira is the brand name). Cimzia, which is approved in the US, isn't available in the EU. Those aren't pills but remicade is given via iv at the beginning every 2 weeks and later on ever 6-8 weeks. Humira is self injected every few weeks. Biologics are effective in 40-50% of the patients.
Lately doctors have advocated combination therapy of immunosuppressives and biologics as this, in one larger study in 2010, has been shown to be effective in nearly 60% of the patients, especially people who have been diagnosed recently (last 2-3 years). Here is a recently article on combination therapy
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3380260/.
Of course, just as imuran, biologics can have side effects, but compared to the pain and effects of Crohn's they are a (small) risk worth taking.
I have to still say I completely puzzled by your doc saying your only treatment option is surgery. If it is inflammation that you are battling with (and not strictures that might lead to dangerous blockages) then having surgery is absurd before treating the Crohn's medically. I would definitely ask your doc soon about biologics and if he doesn't know much about them, you should consider switching your GI.
I hope that helps a bit as an overview, I know that an active Crohn's is really bad and in the years after I was diagnosed I also had months with daily pain. There are options you can still try and there is definitely a very good chance you can get much better.
If you have any specific further questions, just ask - one thing I learned in my 14 years with Crohn's is that information about the disease is a powerful thing to manage it.
