3 Months on Humira: Still Working!

Update: I just recently published a retrospective after being on Humira for 2 years. Pain free since then!

I have been on Humira since June 6, 2012 and it has been 3 months since I took my first Humira dosage. At first I was worried because I thought after the loader dosage I would feel good and gradually get worse since you take 4 shots the first time then 2 and then one every other week. Towards the end of May I was feeling pretty crummy and could barely get out of bed. I was getting weaned off Prednisone gradually but actually I feel better now than I did when I was on 60 mg of Prednisone. Humira really is a miracle drug!  I really wonder how people got by before the biologics were around. I know I saw some literature that showed after a year about 42% of people who take Humira are still in remission. So by definition the odds are I won’t be in remission next June however I wonder if the 58% of people who are not in remission have anything in common.

I thought I was gaining weight on Humira but now am slowly dropping (no vomiting from Crohn’s either Iike I was in May!). The pain in my stomach is different too. Before Humira the pain was sharp like a knife stabbing you and now if I ever have pain it is a combination of feeling hungry and queasy at the same time which is good. Another benefit I have noticed is that embarrassing problem I mentioned in this post is now gone completely. In another post I had mentioned I literally felt a pain in my backside but that however has went away. Perhaps Humira is the gift that keeps on giving. When I was first diagnosed with Crohn’s I spent countless hours online and kept coming across people who believed it was diet. Although, there was some evidence (even peer reviewed) that it may be linked I highly doubt this. From my own experience I know this because I went one week eating no sugar and felt worse. Once I was on Humira I went on a food binge for a week and felt like I was bulletproof. My internist who has an both an M.D. and Ph.D. in biochemistry explained that diet and Crohn’s is garbage which I now believe is true. People forget that Crohn’s is an autoimmune disease and not a diet disease. Given how many obese people we have around the world if Crohn’s was really diet related wouldn’t more than .5% of the world’s population have it?