One more question for those of you who may have experienced it or know... Can Remicade caused sleeplessness? It seems I have been having a tough time getting a full night's sleep lately. It may be due to other reasons or stressors I have been dealing with. It's no fun waking up at 5am after going to sleep at midnight, 1am or later and feeling tired and lacking sleep all day. I remember those Prednisone days well from back in the 90s before my surgery. Benadryl helps but makes me drowsy and it can be hard to break that cycle I find when using it as a sleep aid. Sometimes when I wake up at 4 or 5am and can't sleep, I will take one or 2 Benadryl. But it can't take an hour or more for the drowsiness to really kick in. Them I eventually fall asleep and wake up at 10 or 11 am and feel drowsy. It ends up eating up a lot of my time. Then becomes an ongoing cycle again and again.
Never had a problem with sleeplessness from Remicade. I always get a Benedryl with my infusion that that knocks me out. My husband has always averaged about 5 hours of sleep per night - he started taking 1/2 dose of melatonin (per our daughter who is a Registered Dietitian) and is sleeping much better. I've been on Remicade for 6 years, and didn't have any side effects for a long time.
I had sleeping issues before and after Remicade, with no real change in the magnitude of them. I come from a family of insomniacs.
As far as a firming of the bowel movements I haven’t noticed that. I don’t think you will see improvements for around 2-3 months.
You sound stressed out and looking for cause and effect reactions with Remicade. I would suggest you just relax, chill out and wait. For the sleep issues, NyQuil or the cheaper Walmart equivalent works well, you can also get a prescription for Xanax which should help.
What if you already have antibodies to it because you've been on it before to treat UC? Also will other biologicals work for inflammation in the J-pouch if they haven't worked for colitis?
The reason why I'm asking is because I failed all treatments including the big biologicals. That's why I got the surgery in the first place. Would biologicals ever work again for the J-pouch? I always worry and wonder about this.