Remicade increased dosage or infusion schedule in Australia?

[georgiegirl]

Hi guys,

Haven't been active on here for ages, cause I've been going ok. Tried Humira and it worked great for about 6 months. Then it didn't anymore :frown:

My GI put me on Remicade which I started in January. Had my 3rd infusion on 15th of Feb, then travelled to Bali and had a fabulous pain free time. Have just been given my scripts for doses 4-6. However, I've noticed that all the symptoms have come back - only about 3-4 weeks after my infusion.

In Australia, Medicare pays for Remicade, as long as you qualify and continue to qualify (you have to be particularly sick, and you have to continue to show improvement). But, they are pretty strict with how much and how often you can have it. My GI thought weekly Humira would improve my symptoms and applied to get it for me, but got rejected.

Does anyone know whether Medicare will allow you to have a higher dosage / kilo, or have infusions more frequently? If not, I don't think this drug is going to work for me. And I've tried everything else!

Georgie

 

[Jennifer]

Gra was having this issue as well but with Humira. Aussie had some great advice in Gra's thread here: http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=48694 Hopefully you'll be able to get what you need. Have you tried Cimzia?

 

[georgiegirl]

Thanks for the reply. Haven't tried cimzia - my GI didn't think I'd do well on it but I can't remember why. He has applied to the pharmaceutical company for extra doses of remicade on a compassionate basis. Now we just have to wait and see...

 

[ebaynie]

I had my third dose of infliximab last Nov. I still wasn't feeling too well, so my doctor performed a colonscopy so that he could physically see if I was healing. Pre-infliximab, I had 30cm of inflamed Jejunum. But the colonscopy showed that it was starting to heal, thus with this proof, Medicare were happy to continue the funding, even though I was still feeling average. I know colonscopies are awful, but maybe it's worth getting your doctor to take a look and see if the infliximab has helped in any way?