Crohns Disease Causes » Persistent Symptoms http://crohnsdiseasecauses.com Help, Cures and Support for Crohns Disease Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:07:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Alternative Crohns Disease Treatment http://crohnsdiseasecauses.com/alternative-crohns-disease-treatment/ http://crohnsdiseasecauses.com/alternative-crohns-disease-treatment/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 15:07:20 +0000 Dr Joe Stevenson http://crohnsdiseasecauses.com/?p=5 The main treatment for Crohns disease is medicine to stop the inflammation in the intestine and medicine to prevent flare-ups and keep you in remission. A few people have severe, persistent symptoms or complications that may require a stronger medicine, a combination of medicines, or surgery.

The type of symptoms you have and how bad they are will determine the treatment you need. Aminosalicylates (such as sulfasalazine or mesalamine). These medicines help manage symptoms for many people who have Crohns disease. Antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin and metronidazole may be tried if aminosalicylates are not helping your symptoms. These medicines work especially well for disease in the colon.

Antibiotics are also used to treat fistulas, which are abnormal connections or openings between two organs or parts of the body. But 50% of fistulas come back when antibiotics are stopped. Corticosteroids (such as budesonide or prednisone) may be given by mouth for a few weeks or months to control inflammation. But corticosteroids have serious side effects, such as high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and increased risk of infection. Budesonide causes remission in mild or moderate Crohns disease of the ileum and the right colon. It does not work as well as prednisone or other corticosteroids. But it also does not have as many side effects as other corticosteroids. The long-term side effects are not well known, so your doctor will probably not have you take it for a long time.

Prednisone may help if budesonide does not. Medicines that suppress the immune system (called immunomodulator medicines), such as azathioprine (AZA), 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP), or methotrexate. You may take these if the medicines listed above do not work, if your symptoms come back when you stop taking corticosteroids, or if your symptoms come back often, even with treatment.

If you have tried all the medicines listed above and none of them have worked, your doctor may give you a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonist such as infliximab (Remicade). This drug may work for people who have not had any success with other medicines for Crohns disease. Infliximab is also used to treat fistulas if antibiotics do not heal them. Another TNF antagonist that may be used to treat Crohns disease is adalimumab (Humira). It may work for people for whom infliximab has stopped working and for people who have a bad reaction to infliximab.

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