Humira for Crohns/Colitis

mini5

i've been using Humira for Crohns for 6 weeks but haven't noticed improvement in symptoms yet. I've heard it can take between 2 and 12 weeks to start working. has anyone used it and what was your experience?

thanks

Saruman

I have never heard of it until right now. On looking on their site, it seems it was never designed for Crohns but is recently approved for treatment so someone must have found it helps.

I just had a flare up so im back on my medication after about 4 or 5 years of freedom. I take Pentasa (mezalasine) and also a steroidal enima.

Sucks to be us during a flare up huh?

ncmc

Hi Mini,

My husband has Crohns decease and has been taking Humira for about 10 months now. It probably took about 4+ weeks for hime to notice a difference. I think it was strange for him because it wasn't like steroids where he noticed a massive improvement very quickly, it was a more gradual thing, but he has found it to be a great help. He has had very few cramps and flare ups since he started taking it. In fact he has only had one incident that I can think of and that was a blockage in his intestine caused by eating too much fruit, so there's nothing Humira can do about that!

The only drawback he finds with taking Humira is that if you have any sniffles or infections at all then you can't take it. He found that he wasn't able to take it for several weeks and he felt his symptoms coming back.

He also found that he had very dry painful eyes when he first started using it. He had to use a medicated eye drop for a few weeks. I believe this is quite a common side effect. If you have any further questions, please ask. He is not a Boardsie, but I can ask him and post on here! I would persevere, I know it doesn't work for everyone, but I think it is too early to tell with you and if it does work, it works really well.

nerdysal

I was on humira for a year. It relieved some of my symptoms within about 8 weeks. However my crohn's was so far advanced that it wasn't enough to get rid of them completely. I ended up having surgery.
Different people react in different ways to medications. I reacted very quickly to infliximab but that ended up being a bad thing because it never lasted the eight weeks.

steveone

I use humira for ankylosing spond.. i find it fairly good but if i break from it (ie for colds etc) i feel worse than ever....then i have to build it back up again...

silversurfer

I've just started the Humira myself, a few days ago.
My local GP said to give it a month to see how it goes, but as you said it can be from 2 to 12 weeks until you see the improvement.