Humira Hooray!

Wonderful for you Tammy!!!!!

Very good news indeed. I also was one of those who did not last the two weeks Humira was supposed to work. I was on it for enteropathic arthritis. My rheumy told me that those with IBD tend to need more frequent dosing. I did pretty well with the weekly dosing, but once Simponi was approved for AS, I asked to switch (monthly injections).

It has been over a year and I am doing better on the Simponi than Humira, although I wound up injecting every 3 weeks instead of monthly at first, but now am back to monthly. My inflammatory markers are way down and my GI said my pouch/rectal cuff never looked better. My rheumy says they just keep making better and better biologics. Simponi just completed phase 3 clinical trials for UC, so FDA approval is just around the corner. I was surprised that they did trials for UC before Crohn's on this one.

Jan

I love my Humira, too. I use it for Ankylosing Spondylitis and had been on a two-week interval but when I was pregnant and breastfeeding, my doctor and I agreed to an "as-needed" basis, since the Humira kicked in pretty quickly when I used it. I am fortunate (supposedly) to be keenly aware of when things are starting to brew disease-wise, so for the past six years, it had been going well.

I guess I got a little too lax (managing to get by with one injection every two to three months) because my Uveitis flared suddenly about six weeks ago with no warning. It's an auto-immune eye disease that goes hand-in-hand with Ankylosing Spondylitis. The eye specialist wanted me to get back to a regular schedule so I didn't risk my vision, so now I'm at about every three weeks. Of course, it could all change again tomorrow, and if that happens, I'll deal with it then.

I'm so very glad to hear that you have some help managing the cost. I'm fortunate to have a low co-pay for it, but what if I didn't?! It seems inhumane to me for some people not to have access to it due to cost since it works so well for so many. It's good to know that there are resources available so people don't have to suffer needlessly.

Keep us posted on how you're doing. :-)

That is Fantastic news