Intro:
I have had UC for 10 years, diagnosed in my first trimester of pregnancy. I’ve had successes and failures with many 5-ASA’s and biologics as well as some decent remission times.
Some more about Alice B:
I’m a former pharma rep who did a 180 and now work on documentary films.
Prednisone Alternative Possibilities:
I wanted to share some medication info with anyone who is having prednisone, Remicade and or Asocol HD failures.
I’m having a bit of success after failures on Prednisone, Remicade, Asacol HD, and 6mp. I think they call it steroid refractory UC.
This past week of trying new meds was my last ditch effort before surgery. Just to clarify, there was a point when Remicade did the job well and prednisone would’ve knicked some symptoms but I took a two year break from Remicade. A step which several GI doc’s are opposed to.
Anyhow,
My doc was openly out of ideas for treating my idiopathic responses to meds. I’d been tested for cdiff (negative).
I used to be in the pharma industry and brought up the possibility of my liver being in the way of metabolizing the prednisone and others.
He put me on a different steroid- Uceris ( my insurance didn’t cover it so it was replaced with Budesonide 3mg/24 hours at 3 times per day, also Cipro 2x per day and Metronidazol 3x per day.
More importantly he told me to stay away from the Asacol HD.
He has been seeing patients seemingly becoming “immune” to it.
Bottom line is after a week and a half my severity and symptoms are much better.
UC’ers should remind their docs about Ucerus aka Budesonide when prednisone fails because it doesn’t activate until it reaches the illeum and skips the liver enzyme. Another great bonus is it doesn’t come with many of the same side effects.
There are several studies I have found online about refractory ulcerative colitis based in the UK. I live in the US and not much has been done here on the subject of alternative steroids.
I hope this can be of some help to my fellow prednisone-failing UC’ers.
written by Alice B
submitted in the colitis venting area
I have had UC for 10 years, diagnosed in my first trimester of pregnancy. I’ve had successes and failures with many 5-ASA’s and biologics as well as some decent remission times.
