back to the drawing board

so today I had my 3rd flex sig of the year. not really getting any easier to do. worst part was finding out what I already feared-- inflammation is just as bad as it was during the previous one back in May --Right after I came out of the hospital and before I tried Remicade. So the multiple doses of Remicade did nothing. The weekly doses of Humira are doing nothing. the only thing that seems to have any impact is prednisone, which has too many systemic effects to be used as a maintenance drug, obviously. and all that does is treat the symptoms anyway, not the cause. so did i just waste all this time, money, and energy? not sure. at least i'm not sticking anything in my keister for awhile

so they took some biopsies and samples and will go have those tested. My doc wanted their in-house folks to look at it so they could rush it, however they don't take my health insurance, so it will need to be sent out to the insurance-approved lab. whatever. my doc gave me another specialist to contact, but he doesn't take my insurance, so we had to find another one. No biggie, instead of going to Mt. Sinai like I wanted, I'll be going to UPenn, to a doc that went to school at Mt.Sinai. close enough :) on the plus side, I find it easier to drive to Philly than drive to NYC.

The earliest I could get an appointment is late February.

(And folks want to convince us that single-payer healthcare would somehow be worse??)

so essentially, i'm in a holding pattern for 3 months. but my doc gave me a new version of mesalamine (thankfully, it's oral). omg these pills are huge! the standard dose is 4 pills a day, I get to take 8 of them... and unlike the asacol, there's no way I can swallow more than one of these at a time... just look at them!