Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Diary of a Crohn's Flare: 2/12/14 stopping Imuran



On Monday I reported to my GI doctor that I had experienced about 10 days of night sweats, after he put me on Imuran.  He ordered me to stop taking Imuran until after I completed a battery of blood tests to ensure nothing bad is happening.

My night sweats stopped the same night I stopped taking the Imuran.

Another interesting coincidence is that last two days I had taken the Imuran, I also felt a mild burning sensation in my bladder (like I had a bladder infection).  I haven’t reported this to my doctor  yet, but I intend to do so as soon as I talk to him (or his nurse) next.

So far I haven’t suffered any Crohn’s flare-up symptoms.  However, it’s much harder for me to tell when I’m flaring now.  Back in the ‘90s when I had a flare, I started bleeding and became anemic.  It made the Crohn’s flare obvious.  Now I can’t really tell what my Crohn’s is doing.  I sometimes suffer an ache in the lower-right quadrant of my abdomen but this has never seemed to me to signal a flare, it’s just something I’m used to dealing with now.

The main thing for me now is, I don’t think I can afford the Humira or Remicade treatment, so I really want to give the Imuran a good try before moving to something stronger.

Oh, I also discovered that Imuran can cause hair loss, fun!

As you can see from my previous post, I am try to ramp up my physical activity.  I think (or maybe it's hope) it helps me control my stress.

I remember what I felt like when my Crohn's was active in the '90s and I had to take tons of steroids.  I'm not sure I could have started running then.  I got into running about 3 years ago when I was mostly in remission. I'm pretty sure that I can keep this going through the flare (unless something really bad like the abscess happens).  My goal is to run another marathon at sometime.  I hope the Crohn's cooperates!

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