My biologic therapy begins tomorrow

A year ago I hadn’t even heard of ‘biologic therapy’. Tomorrow I’m starting treatment this way since my Crohn’s Disease isn’t responding to ‘conventional therapy’.

A month ago my doctor decided I should go on Remicade based on the condition I’m in. My symptoms are inconvenient rather than dishabilitating, but they’re at a level where they’re likely to lead to serious internal complications if an effective treatment isn’t found.

It’s taken a few weeks to get Remicade approved by the insurance company, but they did agree to it on Monday and my first IV infusion is scheduled for tomorrow.

This has to be administered by a 2-3 hour IV infusion because it’s a protein. Proteins taken orally get broken down if it went through the digestive system. After the first three treatments it only needs to be done every 8 weeks. (Another similar treatment – Humira – involves injecting myself every other week but I’d rather have an IV every eight weeks)

Crohn’s is an autoimmune disease caused by the body fighting against itself. That results in a lot of inflammation that isn’t present in healthy people. Remicade binds to the substance which controls the immune response. That suppresses the immune system response and the inflammation goes away. If you’re interested you can read more about it here.

It’s expensive because it takes several months to make – it has to be ‘grown’ from mouse cells. Or something like that. That’s what the manufacturer’s blog says.

Controlling unwanted inflammation by controlling the immune system response is good except when you get sick and need an immune system response. I won’t be looking forward to the first time that happens.

By the way, I’m still interested in knowing if diet helps but so far I haven’t been able to determine if it does and my doctor’s recommendation is, let’s get you better, then you can experiment with diet if you like. Although she also wants me on this long-term so the symptoms don’t come back. And if you go off it it might not work if you restart it. So I’m not sure how all that fits together with experimenting with diet.

I was scared of going on strong drugs (or biologic therapy) because of the risks but I think I’m pretty much reconciled (resigned?) to it now.

Remicade seems to work well for a lot of people with Crohn’s Disease. I’m hoping I’ll be one of them!