So Badger turned 18 on Dec. 20th!!!!! Unfortunately he also seems to have started the worst flare of his life about the same time.
He waited 6 days to tell me he was having severe bloody D. Poor kid- he was hoping it was just going to go away. By the time we got in to see GI 6 days later it was up to 15+ times a day and he'd lost 10 pounds in about 10 days.
They put him in the hospital where I enjoyed the comfort of a chair bed for 10 days. They did MRE and scoped him, started him on TPN and then did Remicade. We all held our breath because by that time we were starting to talk about transfusions of blood and albumin.
Took 5 days but then he dropped to 10 BMs in 12 hours then 6 in 12 hours and finally only 3-4 in 12 hours. At that point he had also regained 2 pounds and his H&H and albumin were holding steady just above transfusion levels. So they released him home.
Went for his second Remicade infusion Thursday and again we wait to see how well he responds. Right now he's too weak to go to school or do much although his labs are gradually improving. Still very anemic but his inflammatory markers (except platelets) are way down from where they were.
I'm so thankful that Remicade worked because I don't know where we would be otherwise. All but one small patch of his colon was bad and his stomach was inflamed along with much of his small intestines.
He's still on MTX too and the GI said that they feel the combo of Remicade and MTX is safer than with 6-MP/Imuran.
He waited 6 days to tell me he was having severe bloody D. Poor kid- he was hoping it was just going to go away. By the time we got in to see GI 6 days later it was up to 15+ times a day and he'd lost 10 pounds in about 10 days.
They put him in the hospital where I enjoyed the comfort of a chair bed for 10 days. They did MRE and scoped him, started him on TPN and then did Remicade. We all held our breath because by that time we were starting to talk about transfusions of blood and albumin.
Took 5 days but then he dropped to 10 BMs in 12 hours then 6 in 12 hours and finally only 3-4 in 12 hours. At that point he had also regained 2 pounds and his H&H and albumin were holding steady just above transfusion levels. So they released him home.
Went for his second Remicade infusion Thursday and again we wait to see how well he responds. Right now he's too weak to go to school or do much although his labs are gradually improving. Still very anemic but his inflammatory markers (except platelets) are way down from where they were.
I'm so thankful that Remicade worked because I don't know where we would be otherwise. All but one small patch of his colon was bad and his stomach was inflamed along with much of his small intestines.
He's still on MTX too and the GI said that they feel the combo of Remicade and MTX is safer than with 6-MP/Imuran.
