Im yet another Crohn's sufferer

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Joined
Dec 30, 2011
Messages
18
Location
Melbourne, Australia
Hi out there fellow sufferers,

I'm new, male and 38 years old and here is a brief run down of my life with crohn's. I was diagnosed with Crohn's in around 2001 after the doctors did a routine internal check when I was getting a sphincterotomy. (ouch) They noticed some inflammation in my intestines and urged me to go on mesalazine straight away to see if it helped. At this stage I did not know I had crohn's disease, it was sitting there dormant waiting for a trigger. I took mesalazine for about three months and then thought I was better so stopped taking the medicine. It stayed dormant for many years until in 2008ish when I finally gave it the trigger it required which was too much work, smoking and stress. Since then it has not gone away. I have had numerous courses of pred, (which went alright with me, no side effects), continuous treatment with mesasalazine, pentasa (i had some side effects but cant remember what they were but I went off them) and now imuran. Since 2009 I have had too many painful flare ups to mention, only once requiring hospital. I was in so much pain I finally called an ambulance and they took over half an hour to get to me and by then the pain had subsided, but they took me to hospital anyway where I sat for 5 hours without a visit from anyone and so checked myself out). I have only recently started imuran and have developed so much pain in the knees it takes me 10 mins to loosen up before I can walk properly even from sitting down for only 5 minutes. Im not sure if this is from the pred, or the imuran. Of course my doctor is on holidays so I went to hospital where I again sat for two hours without anyone seeing me so i checked myself out again. I'm just gonna stop taking imuran and see my doctor next week.

Anyway, is there anyone else who has has painful knees from imuran? im not sure if it is from this drug, or the pred.
 
Hi Jimmy :bigwave: I would say the joint pain would more likely be the Imuran, usually they use the pred to help with things like this so I would be surprised if it was that. With you doc do you mean your GI doc? Could you perhaps contact your GP? What dose of imuran and pred are you on?
 
Hi Angrybird,
It is definitely the Imuran. I decided not to take my 50mg dose last night and now this morning I have little or no knee pain. I could put up with the pain if necessary, but my main worry was that the pain meant that the imuran was actually doing some damage to my knee, not just making it sore. If it is only making it sore and not doing damage, then I would just put up with it. This is something I am going to check with my GP, although looking at the people on this website, I think people on this website know more than some doctors anyway. When I was in the hospital yesterday, I heard one of the (i assume) doctors, teaching three nurses what crohns actually was!!

Currently im not on pred, the specialist wanted me to do another round of pred I wasn't keen, so thats why i started on imuran, 50mg tabs once a day. I have been taken them at night. If they arent doing any damage to the knee just creating soreness (is this possible), I may try to take it during the day, but then that will have its own inherent problems as well.
 
Hi there, I know its crap being on the pred but I would say it may help to go on a low maintainence dose for now especially if you have active disease. This may help with any 'teething' problems you are having with the imuran. When I was put on this I will still taking the pred and ended up on a 200mg dose and didn't have any joint pain. This did the trick and I was off the pred and problem free for ages - I didn't have a single sick day off work for over a year!!! I still felt fine when my routine bloods showed an issue with my white cell count which is why it got stopped :( It may be worth trying to take it in the morning and still try and speak to a doc about this, I would worry about how your crohns would react to not having any treatment at all........
 
Hey Angrybird, yes I'd rather be on the pred as I never had any reactions to the pred, just a little puffy in the face in the morning but nothing to worry about. My main concerns with pred were the bone weakening as i'm an active person, and a tradesperson for work and i need to be physically fit. Im going to check with the GP in a couple of days about the Imuran causing the pain, (maybe I should have a precautionary x-ray of my knees just in case) In the meantime, I am still taking my mesalazine which on doctors orders i take in conjunction with the imuran even though it says on the packet not to!! Thanks for the responses Angrybird.
 
No worries :) keep us updated on how you get on. When on the pred were you given calcichew? This is supposed to help with the bone side of things.
 
I wasn't given calcichew or similar. Only since being on Imuran have I even felt any sort of joint pain at all! Maybe the Imuran has revealed some issues in my knees that would have otherwise remained hidden?? I'll definitely as my GP for an arthritis check/xray or whatever on my knees.
 
Defintely better to have this checked for piece of mind. In a way it would be preferable for it to be a reaction to the imuran rather than a new issue to deal with.
 
Hi jimmyf and welcome! I am sorry you are experiencing so much knee pain from the Imuran. I have read others suffering from bad joint pain while being on this drug. Like you said, the biggest concern is it causing damage to your joints. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer. If you discuss this with your GI, please report back what you learn!

I hope this side effect is short lived, and you start feeling well soon!
 

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