Prednisone v. Entocort

[MacMcKenney]

Several months ago, I did a 40-day course of prednisone because of lesions in my ileum (the doctors suspects Crohn's). There was no improvement. He is now prescribing Entocort. Is there any reason to believe that Entocort will be more effective than Prednisone?

 

[DustyKat]

Entocort is more a topical steroid and does work well for some but I don’t believe it would be superior to Prednisone. More the opposite, at the outset if you can get away with Entocort that is good otherwise you move to Pred.

40 days doesn’t seem a sufficient course for Pred. Did you have symptomatic improvement at all when you on the Pred? What dose did you start out with and how long before you started tapering?

 

[Scipio]

Entocort has the advantage of being topical in the gut and poorly absorbed into the blood and quickly metabolized once it's there. This makes it less likely to induce side effects than the more systemic prednisone. Entocort is also "timed" via pH to release in the ileum region of the gut allowing it to be more specifically focused on the area where your disease is located.

It's true that Entocort is generally "weaker" than prednisone, but given it's advantages of being more narrowly focused on the ileum and with a better side effect profile, my guess is your doc thinks it's worth a shot and wants to try it.