My Story With Humira, Looking for Input Thanks

[DaGreek]

Hello everyone, Im new to this forum but have had Crohns and Ulcerative Colitis for 4 years now. I started on Entocort, which wasnt working well, then was switched to Mesalamine, which caused major flare ups for me. I was then put back on Entocort with Prednisone, and it was working for a little while but then decided to stop working. The crazy thing with the combination of Pred/entocort was that I gained 70lbs in a month n a half and havent lost it yet despite eating better and working out After all that I was put on Humira and was taking a shot every other week. Well eventually It stopped working after about a year, so then I was taking a shot every week. Well after about 5 months of taking it every week I became fatigued, depressed and developed Hypothyroidism. So I was put on depression medication, thyroid medication, and went back down to 1 shot of Humira every other week. I personally think that the Humira is causing both my depression and Thyroid problem but I cant know for sure. I recently started Vaping nicotine because I have read many many sites saying that it can help, and It really has. It has helped my stress and mood greatly, but I dont think its enough to stop taking my meds. I would LOVE to stop taking all my meds and be put on MM to see what happens. Im 24 years old and I dont want to be on all these meds if its truly unnecessary. Really does seem like each med is causing a different side effect, and then i get another med to treat that side effect. Both my PCP and Gastro HIGHLY disprove of nicotine and MM, but im sure that has to do with the Pharma companies. Just looking for some input on the situation, I had a colonoscopy a month ago and my Crohns and colitis is in complete remission.....so i think now would be the best time to try MM. That way I can see if it helps and if my thyroid issues and other problems go away. I know theres a MM forum but this is more Humira related, I think.

P.S. on a side note...I have a volcano inferno Ecig and was wondering if anyone knows that if I get my Card, if i can Vape MM Oil in it? Thanks!

 

[Avw]

I don't think I can really give you any sound medical advice as to whether the medications are worth it once you weigh in on risk/benefit, but I can tell you I had lots of unpleasant side effects from Humira as well. I have been off Humira for over 10 months (I think), and my body is still trying to recover from the kidney and liver damage it caused. I don't think it would be wise to jump straight from Humira to no medications at all though. You should probably, at the very least, have some sort of maitenance therapy to ease onto while you start trying the alternatives. Maybe you could discuss something like that with your doctor and see if they would be willing to try it that way. If you're in remission now, I wouldn't want to risk having a major flare by quitting all meds, because it's probably the meds that got you into remission in the first place.
Hope you can find a happy medium!

 

[Uncleileum]

I'm interested in your experience because there seem to be some overlaps with my own. I've never taken Humira but have been 'on' Remicade for seven years. Before that I had to take most of the meds you were on. They all seem to be poisonous to an extent. I, too, became depressed and was prescribed a long list of different antidepressants, most of which caused worse diarrhea than I already had from Crohns. SSRIs were the worst for this (you'd think that my doctor would have understood this before prescribing them..I had to work my way through Seroxat, Venlafaxine, Citalopram, Prozac and others). In the end I was prescribed Imipremene, an older Tricyclic antidepressant. This at least stayed inside my body long enough to work, and it helped me get good sleep but at what cost... it affected my vision and my memory so badly. So nowadays I view all prescription drugs with reservation. I do not trust the drugs companies and I'm not keen on taking anything I absolutely can't do without. So for now I persist with Remicade, but ideally I'd like to stop this too. At least in the case of MM it seems research is showing that it really can benefit Crohns sufferers in specific ways that seem to actually mend or soothe the immune system, rather than nuking it. So, like you and many others I would like the opportunity to use this form of natural medicine. I noted you vaporise nicotine and I had read that this had been shown to help in Crohn's disease; interesting.