Introducing myself...

[jeffreyk]

Hi there

I've been lurking around here for some time, and decided that it was time to join up. I don't want to write a book here for an intro, so I'll start with some bullets...

• 34/M/married living in Northern California, from the Midwest
• Diagnosed with junior rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) in 1985
• Re-diagnosed with anklylosing spondylitis in 1995
• Diagnosed with ulcerative colitis 9/2001
• Total colectomy/j-pouch 4/2005 (takedown 8/2005)
• Total left hip replacement 12/2012 (from AS damage over time)
• Diagnosed with dissecting cellulitis 12/2013
• Currently take humira, used to take remicade
• My auto-immune system and I have a love/hate relationship

I wouldn't mind chatting about...
• Humira and the adventures of a weak immune system
• Dealing with multiple auto-immune problems concurrently
• Ask me anything... AS, UC, pre/post-surgery, meds, diet, other auto-immune problems, etc

Excited to participate, and hope I can be helpful

 

[pink&green]

Hello Jeffrey and Welcome you definitely came to the right place.

 

[SarahBear]

Welcome to the forum, Jeffrey!

I like the bullet list idea - it does make it easier to read. It looks like you've had quite a journey. I'm going to go ahead and tag afidz, one of our forum moderators, as she has some experience with AS as well.

How are you feeling now? Has the Humira helped?

It sounds like you'll be a great help to others here!

 

[valleysangel92]

Hello, welcome to the forum

It sounds like you have had a bit of a roller coaster, how are things for you now? I sincerely hope that the humorous is doing it's job and you are on your way to remission.

I'm glad you've joined us, it seems like you will be an asset to our members .

 

[jeffreyk]

Hey everyone. Thanks for the warm welcome. The good news is that since I had my colon removed, I haven't had resurgeonce of UC—aside from pouchitis now and again. My immune system still makes things really fun and interesting.

To answer sarahbear: humira has helped. remicade too, before it. i've been lucky b/c my sister (who has crohns) has had less success with it (she still takes remicade tho). I've been able to come on and off of it without developing any issues with it being less effective. right now I'm in a bit of a double-edged sword situation with Humira: if I don't take it, my dissecting cellulitis flares up. When I do take it, the flare ups go away, but I get really intense infections really quickly on my scalp due to the compromised immune system. So it's choosing between more active areas that don't get infected as fast, or less active areas and lots of trips to the dermatologist to open up the infection and let the demons out. All of that said, this is all much preferable to dealing with active UC. Plus without the Humira, my back starts to act up and that's bad news.

Luckily I'm a bit of a sicko at heart, so I try to take it all in stride and think about it like having a front-row seat to a weird medical show. I have doctors and support that do their best to indulge me and i've been able to shoot video of procedures, i got to see the post surgery analysis, slides, and photos of my colon after it was removed, i got to see a pics of my hip/femur after it had been taken apart for my hip replacement.

...and now I'm rambling. Anyway, excited to have joined!