Ed's Ulcerative Colitis

It's been kind of a crummy UC month for me.  Lots of flairs and still 6 days left until my next Remicade infusion. I went to see my GI Doctor and he bumped me from 3 Lialda a day to 4. That was 6 days ago and I don't feel any different. I'm spending lots of time this month soaking in my garden tub with really hot water.  This seems to calm the cramps. A Friend of my Moms who has Crohns went and got a assemble-yourself Sauna in Seattle for the same reason.   Here is the site: http://www.qualitysaunawarehouse.com/ They have a 2 person model for under $999, but I'm going to stick with the garden tub. The company that I work for is changing my health care plan and now I have a 10% copay and HRA (Health Reimbursement Arrangement).  I think that this means that instead of paying $40 per infusion, I'm going to get hit with a huge bill until my out of pocket is used up.  (Out of pocket per year max is $1700 for me)  There is a program called Remi...

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.

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...