I'm in entocort 3mg 3x's daily and it seems to be working!! But my question is I know It's not a forever drug so what comes next? I tried remicade years ago when I was first diagnosed and it to worked great!! Would remicade be considered a maintenance drug for Crohn's??
What's a maintenance med for Crohn's?
- Thread starter Jison0612
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I am on Remicade and continue to take it as a maintenance drug to continue my remission.....
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Sometimes remicade May be used long term, but really it's for people who aren't responding well enough to other treatments . The issue with drugs like remicade is that we can build tolerances to them and they stop working so it's better to use them when it's really needed and not for just maintaining remission. If your responding well then you may be given something like pentasa or maybe LDN or 6MP
Absolutely correct - I was put on Remicade after a multitude of other medications failed and I developed fistulizing disease.....so far that has been able to keep me in clinical remission.
nogutsnoglory
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Any of the Mesalamine, Immunosuppressives and Biologics can be used as maintenance therapy. It's really only the steroids as far as IBD medications that cannot be used long term.
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It's not advisable to stay on steroids more than 2-3 months really, in total I was on them about 7 months and I thought that was too long. Steroids can have thinning effects on your bones and you can become dependant on them if used long term. I understand it's a pain to keep changing medications and it's daunting to come off one that's working, but steroids were never designed as a long term treatment. They are a short, sharp fix.
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Remicade is always used long term as a maintenance med since episodic use proved to be ineffective. There are two schools of thought, bottom up therapy and top down approach. The reasoning behind top down approach(and using biologics first) is getiing mucosal healing quickly in an effort to stop progression to stricturing or fistulizing disease.
My son went straight to Remicade, his CD was deemed moderate to severe and was located in his TI. Hopefully, the Remicade will promote mucosal healing and deep stable remission.
The only concern you may have of going to Remicade is you have previously been on it and may have built up antibodies to it in which case you may not be able to use it again. They do have a test for that. And you could still try the other biologics as well.
Your doc may use the bottom up approach in which case you start at the bottom of the med pyramid like 5ASAs and work your way up if the med isn't working for you.
Good luck with your maintenance med I hope you have a long remission!
My son went straight to Remicade, his CD was deemed moderate to severe and was located in his TI. Hopefully, the Remicade will promote mucosal healing and deep stable remission.
The only concern you may have of going to Remicade is you have previously been on it and may have built up antibodies to it in which case you may not be able to use it again. They do have a test for that. And you could still try the other biologics as well.
Your doc may use the bottom up approach in which case you start at the bottom of the med pyramid like 5ASAs and work your way up if the med isn't working for you.
Good luck with your maintenance med I hope you have a long remission!
