How do you know if your medication is working?

[Anna90]

This may sound like a strange question but how do you know if your medication is working?

I am currently on Aza 125mg and Pred 30mg and thought after 14 weeks it was starting to work but then last week I had a bad 2 hour attack of agonising cramps and D. Since then i've had stomach cramps and nausea on and off. However before that I had 2-3 weeks pretty symptom free.

I phoned my IBD Nurse who wants to start me on Remicade, but I'm a little confused as before when I tried tapering off the Pred I had D every day until I increased the dose and I thought this was a flare.

What do you call a flare? And is it normal just to have one really bad day or hour with Crohns?

 

[Avw]

I'm not sure if I can answer your question about the meds, but I consider a "flare" weeks or months (or years) on end with more than 4-5 bad days a week. Even when in "remission" I'll still have 1-2 bad days a week, or just have a couple of bad hours a day (usually in the morning). Some people call it a flare when they just have a couple bad days, so I guess it depends what your "normal" is.

 

[moogie]

I get flares now and again. Anything that last for more than 2 days for me is a flare.

As to how I know if my medication works it's easy how do I feel.... If I feel pretty good 90% of the time it works. Anything less than that it does not work.

But Sometimes I get worse because of something I do and it's not the medications fault. You have to keep this in mind too.