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More options before surgery

I haven't posted in a few months, but my name is Eddie, I'm 18 and I have severe colitis. After being hospitalized for a few weeks in February of this year I haven't been able to get out of a flare. I am currently on Mercaptopurine, Prednisone, Asacol, Canasa, Remicade, and Percocet for pain, but nothing is making a major difference. I was planning on going away to college in a month, but don't want to if I need surgery. Does anyone know of any treatment methods that I can discuss with my doctor to avoid resorting to surgery, or should I just give in and get the surgery and put off school for a semester or two? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 

nogutsnoglory

Moderator
Have you had a colonoscopy or imaging test recently? Are you mostly inflamed or is it scar tissue? Inflammation can be treated by medication but if its mainly scar tissue you will likely need surgery.

If its mostly inflammation I think surgery is always the last resort. I would see if changing to another biologic and immunosuppressant night do the trick for you.
 
Haven't had a colonoscopy since November, but i had a flex sigmoidoscopy recently showing severe inflammation. They are upping the dosages of mercaptopurine and Remicade and doing blood tests to see how my body metabolizes them. The thing about surgery is that if I'm going to need it eventually, I'd rather do it sooner than later so that I don't have to take time off once i start school, and so I can start living a closer to normal life than being in constant pain.
 
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