Happy Tuesday all! Today I wanted to share a health update and why I’ve decided to start Humira. If you’ve followed previous health updates, you might know this is something I’ve struggled to make a decision on. On the one hand, my colon is much healthier than when I was diagnosed with IBD and I feel well the majority of the time. On the other hand, I’m well aware of the ‘top-down’ approach to IBD these days-where medicines act as much as a preventative as they do managing the present. So what changed?
The Heat
I’ve blogged before about how much I HATE the heat and how it makes my Crohn’s much worse. This ongoing heatwave has left my gut feeling far from best and whilst I couldn’t be sure if it was Crohn’s (or simply too much heat and summer indulgence); it felt as if my symptoms were definitely going the other way and getting worse rather than getting better. I still feel much better when it’s not hot, so it is difficult to know if it was my Crohn’s, but with temperatures set to soar even further; I felt the Humira might prevent anything from worsening.
My Fertility
Obviously, another recent thing playing on my mind is fertility. In my ‘my ovarian reserve is low at 32‘ blog post; I explained how recent tests have shown a lower than expected egg reserves. On one of the scans I had, a nurse (who had Crohn’s) said she could see inflammation on my bowels above my ovaries which played on my mind. Of course, this wasn’t a medical diagnosis (I have no idea how you can see bowels from a scan of your ovaries either)but it did open my eyes that the two can be connected.
I’ve known all along that the best thing for my overall health is to get my Crohn’s under my control and hearing this reiterated (and how close the bowel can be to our ovaries) was a bit of a wake-up call; and reminded me that I needed to think of the bigger picture and not just whether I could manage my Crohn’s symptoms currently. I know the one thing I can do to potentially improve my fertility in the future is to be healthy; so after speaking to my doctor about it- it really did make sense to give it a go.
My Relationship with Food
Finally, I was aware that my relationship was food was becoming a bit negative. I know the key to a healthy microbiome is a varied diet but I was eating the same kinds of things over and over. I really need to get to the bottom of my gut microbiome (I’m doing a test of this soon!) and also start varying my diet. I still will stick to gluten and dairy free but I’d like to experiment with a wider range of vegetables, sheep cheese and more non-gluten grains. I feel like knowing I have Humira controlling my disease (touch wood!) will give me some more confident-and almost provide a ‘clean slate’ for my gut.
My Humira Experience So Far
So I thought I’d just share my experiences with Humira and how it’s all gone-just in case it’s something you’re contemplating yourself. I did my first ‘loading dose’ (consisting of four shots) last Friday, and did a little video about my experiences on my Facebook page (Which I’ve embedded below too if you’re interested…)
As I’m under the NHS in the UK, it took about a month to go from saying I would start the meds and actually getting my hands on it. This involved getting a prescription from my IBD nurse which was referred to a company called Healthcare at Home. They arrange the delivery of the medication-and give you a day slot to wait in for (Which is helpfully narrowed down to a two hour slot the day before).Healthcare at Homethen pass on your details to a team of nurses; who come out to show how to use the pen. It took me another few days after getting my medication until I had my nurse’s slot. The slot was a good hour and the nurse was so helpful-she gave me and my mom a detailed demonstration on taking the medication, how to inject and talked me through all the side effects.
I did my first ‘loading dose’ (consisting of four shots) last Friday, and did a little video about my experiences on my Facebook page (Which I’ve embedded below too if you’re interested…)
Overall, my experience after taking the medication was just tiredness-which I expected. I spent the weekend doing very little and just resting. I haven’t noticed any improved toilet trips but I know it takes time, and in the meantime, I’m hoping I can focus my energies on eating healthy, experimenting with a variety of foods and going ahead with my gut testing. I’ll let you know how I get on!
I hope this post is useful-I’ll try to do another update soon and any words of wisdom are always appreciated!
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