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Showing posts from 2008

Lialda working great

I have been on Lialda for over 3 months now and it's working fine without any side effects. When I was on Asacol I always missed at least one does a day. Now I never have to worry since I just take Lialda when I get up. I don't really notice that I'm "better" than I was with Asacol, but it works and I might be better by like 5%. It's really hard to gauge since things change day to day for me and are based on what I eat. (Starbucks is the monkey on my ass) It seems to me that I take it in the morning and it doesn't kick in for a while. I'm tempted to try some Asacol that I have a night and see if it help in the morning. That would be interesting since I have some asacol left over from before I got Lialda.

Diet, Remicade, and dealing with the bleeding

I got an email from Lisa asking me about some of my experiences with diet, Remicade, and dealing with the bleeding. Here is my response: --------------------------------- Hi Lisa, Nice to hear about your story. You are the first person I have ever talked to with UC. I see people at the infusion center, but they have walls between us, so I don’t get to talk to anyone. Let me put you at ease a little. Remicade is nothing. I’m used to the IV now and I actually enjoy my infusions since I get to watch TV for 3 hours without guilt. It’s been 3 years and I have never seen a side effect. If you’re as lucky as I was, you will get to taper off prednisone very soon. One warning.. the first time I tried to taper off prednisone (before remicade) I went too fast and ended up in the hospital. My mistake was assuming that all the “side effects” were from the colitis and they were actually from the lack of prednisone. The taper the 2nd time was easier since I had remicade to help. I’m currently on ...

Taking Lialda now instead of Asacol

After taking Remicade for a few months I stopped taking Asacol since I thought I didn't need it. After a few months I noticed that my colitis slowly got worse. I told my doctor and he decided to up my dose of Remicade. Since I work for a company that is self insured, I didn't like the idea of my infusions going up an additional $3000 per dose unless it worked. After about 3 infusions it was clear that this was not helping. This was around the summer of 2007. At this point I decided to change doctors and my new doctor gave me a fresh perspective. He increased my dose of Imuran to the max for my weight and put me on Asacol again. It worked! Things got better. So at this point I asked my Dr. to move my dose of Remicade back to the former level and the Dr. approved it. The reduction didn't have any negative effect, so I have stayed at that level ever since. Now about Lialda. I heard about it on TV during an interview of a woman who said she was taking a drug for UC just o...