Starting Humira Next Week

[chanaelynn]

So, Its been a small journey for me. Started in July 2011 when I started having bad abdominal pain and discomfort that would send me to the hospital 5 times from July to December. Finally after a colonoscopy, small bowel follow through, capsul endoscopy, and a barium enema they finally diagnosed me with Crohns on December 12th 2011. Shortly after that I went into a flair up like no other. Lasted through the night, but by morning I could not walk. I called my GI doc and they scheduled me for a CT scan. which thank goodness I made to. They found a bowel obstruction and rushed me to the ER. where i waited forever. Then all of a sudden I was in the worst pain of my life (later to find out, i had 2 perferations in my small intestine). They shoved a tube down my nose and throat into my stomach then rushed me off to emergency exploritory surgery. epidural and all. they removed a foot of my small intestine some of my large intestine and my appendix..LONG night. but made it through, was recovering very well for a few days, through new years AND my 22nd birthday. Until I started going down hill. They rushed me back in the next morning where they reopened my insicion to clean out a massive infection and abcess that had formed. Thank goodness things went as well as they could have been. I spent 9 days in the hospital. 2 surgeries. through the new years and my birthday.

Today I recived my Humira teaching with my wonderful husband right next to me helping me the whole way!! And I should be getting my first doeses at the beging of next week. Im so excited to get started because of all the fabulous stories of people going into remision. Im nervous because I will be giving my first shots to myself, but I am so excited to no longer be in pain!! and to get off Prednisone!!

Anyone else taking Humira, How has it been for you? how long until you saw results? How are you handling the needles? while i was in the hospital I had a hepron shot in my stomach twice a day, is the pain similar to that?

 

[jlanier]

Sounds like we have similar stories. I just started Humira in December. So far it seems to be working pretty well. I think it hurts a little more than the shot that was given in your stomach, but not much more. The needles are nothing, plus with the pen you never see the needle. I would say that with everything you have been through, this will be nothing.

 

[mhiler]

My husband has been on Humira for 7 years - started every 2 weeks and eventually increased to every week. He does it in conjunction with Methotrexate injections. He has tried them both separately and began to flare up with his Crohn's after a few months, but if he stays on them both, his Crohn's remains under control. It wasn't until he went on Humira that his Crohn's was brought under control - prior to that, he had exhausted all meds and had 16 surgeries, ultimately leaving him with a total of 7 feet of small bowel and no colon.
I do his shots for him. He does experience discomfort with instillation of Humira - the needles are small and not a big deal, but the medicine burns going in. It wasn't this way in the beginning, but has gotten worse over the past several years - we will say, however, that he is so grateful for Humira - it has put him into remission after a long and terrible road of surgeries! The side effects are far overshadowed by the effectiveness of the medicine!

Good luck - take it in stride and hope it helps you!

 

[chanaelynn]

Thanks you guys so much! im getting excited to get on with my life! my crohns symptoms are not very sever right now just because of the surgeries! BUT I'm doing everything I can to keep it that way. I have another question, how do you maintain a healthy diet?