Hello! Both of my kids are now on Stelara. Olivia is going on 2 years this April and is doing great,,,except for a few bumps in the road recently. She was very stressed during college finals and was not eating very healthy with her crazy study hours ect,,,, her recent labs have slipped a little with a slight inrcrease in CRP and low albumin. Her thyroid labs (which is a good indicater of a flare) were way off again...surely not absorbing her hormone replacement and had to increase her dose. She has complained of occassional cramping and bloating and has had 2 recent episodes of blood with BM, and now has a mouth ulcer. Hmmmm...most definitely a mild flare. Liv usually has disease activity this time of the year...cyclic for both kids. She has also just recently started on birth control pills to help with painful, heavy menses that cause her severe nausea, vomiting and headaches every month. The pills have helped with her dysmennorhea, but I cant help but think the hormones may be messing with her CD and possibly causing this mini flare???? She has been having no issues with the Stelara...GI wants to scope her after her next semester is over just to have a look inside. She has not had a scope since starting the Stelara. Praying things look good and she could continue with this drug.
My son started Stelara 3 months ago after using Cimzia for 18 months with absolutely no effect on his CD. Prior to that he had been on Remicade for almost 2 years with good control until he developed antibodies and became symptomatic again. He sees an Adult GI who is the chief MD of the practice and was uncomfortable prescribing the drug. Both of my kids are the first patients on Stelara for both of their MD's. She initially wanted Trevor to start Humira, but we begged her to prescribe the Stelara because Liv was doing so well with it. After some research on dosing, ect... she agreed to let him try it. I was thrilled when our insurance company agreed to cover the drug for both kids and so far so good. Symptoms have been slowly decreasing (Stelara took 7 months to work for Liv) and he has had zero side effects with it. His labs have been normal, except for some ongoing anemia that developed when he was on Cimzia and he continued to bleed on and off for the entire time...the only thing that stopped the constant bleeding were steroids. Since starting Stelara, he has been able to wean from steroids...bleeding has stopped. I am keeping everthing crossed for both of my children that Stelara contines to work... So happy to hear such great updates from everyone!!! Happy New Year!! Kim