Spreading medications over a life time?

[Forristicat]

Hi there,

Although I am not on any treatment yet (as I am still recovering from a bad reaction to Azathioprine/Imuran), I've been thinking about how our medications apparently stop working after a little while and then we have to switch to the next one.

Is the idea to spread the Crohn's medications over a life time? Are there cases where the medications work for longer, or you can phase yourself off of them with the Gastro Doc's approval?

 

[Clash]

Rarely is anyone phased off meds, especially biologics since the risk is high that you will build antibodies to it and not be able to go back to it.

For many years the treatmental was steroids then imuran came into play but for a long time there were few choices. Of course, treating to clinical remission ( lack of symptoms and normal blood work) was the standard.

The GIs discovered that deep, stable remission with full mucosal healing cut down on surgeries and led to longer periods of remission. So for most GIs that is now the goal.

All that said you are seeing a certain slice of patient for the most part on a forum. Generally, those that are newly diagnosed or struggle with finding remission seek out the forum. The ones who found remission with a med and it had lasted aren't likely to seek out a support forum because they are out living their lives. And many of them have been in remission for years on their med.

The other thing to take into account is the number of meds in the pipeline now and the directions of research. For my son, he's on his second biologic at 19 and we'll find out by scope how effective it is this month. So we'll move on to the next and hopefully other meds will come to approval in the mean time.

 

[Forristicat]

Thanks for the response Clash. True when time goes on more things are happening, so that is always comforting.