Just a quick question

[farmerswifey]

I've been reading alot of posts here and wanted to ask....

My son will be doing EEN for 8 weeks, and the dr said this is what they do for kids here rather than going with medication...

I've noticed though that kids still take meds even on EEN and as I'm new to all of this I'm not sure what the meds are for......

Can anyone enlighten me?

 

[Clash]

EN is a first line treatment in most countries. It can induce remission but isn't as great at maintaining remission. EN has the benefit of giving the bowel a rest so sometimes when the meds aren't getting the child to where they want them to be they add the EN to give the med some help(as EN allows the bowel to rest) also alot of kids are using EN to supplement for nutrional reasons. Crohn's kids have a hard time absorbing the nutrients/calories they need and as a supplement EN can help provide that. Hope this helps some and of course this is just my understanding from reading all these informative posts from parents and other posters.
Crohnsinct can give you a great example of why sometimes EN and meds are used as her daughter did EN while on Remicade.

 

[farmerswifey]

Thank you so much! Yes it makes it clearer...we haven't started treatment yet but we will be going with EEN first and whatever our dr recommends.....

I've alot to learn..sigh!

 

[crohnsinct]

Farmerswifey: I think it is fabulous that your doc is going with EN and wish you lots of success with it. Many people use just EN and are able to avoid meds but as Clash said it doesn't have as great a reputation at maintaining remission so in some cases meds are added but in many of those cases it is a milder med than would have had to be used had you never used EN. In very severe cases like my daughter's the goal is to hit the inflammation fast and hard from the beginning and get the Crohn's under control as fast as possible and in those cases the docs will go with the meds (and in my daughter's case straight to Remicade) first. As our doc explained it, the faster they get the Crohn's under control the less likely surgery will be down the road. Now in my daughter's case the Remicade only got her to 80% and it needed a little help. Often in the states that help comes in the form of another drug (Imuran, Methotrexate, Pentasa etc) but our doc let us try EN first to see if it helped and it did so we were able to avoid adding another drug. Our plan is to cycle on and off EN as needed. She stopped EN at the end of June and so far so good.

Good Luck with your EN journey. Will you child be drinking the shakes or doing the ng tube? There are experts on both here so ask any questions you need!