Entocort vs Prednisone....

I started taking prednisone a while back after fighting it for a month.  I gave in, he put me only on 20mg which was nice.  It took the pain away and I noticed abdominal swelling decrease.  YEAH!  He had me on 1wk at 20 then taper down.  Well, on day two of taper, the pain came back.  Mild at first then it hit me hard on Saturday (yesterday).  At my check up on Thursday, I told him the pain was slowly coming back (only took 3 days to hit hardcore though).  I had a FABULOUS week though.  :)  He prescribed entocort.  I wasn't at that point sure it was pain from something I ate (dried fruit and almonds ).  I waited til Saturday to take it.  How long does it take for the entocort to take over?  I'm still at 10mg pred tapering for another week. 

I would think endocort would take a little longer to take effect, but I have never been on it myself. I would say if it has not shown any sign of working yet then you may want to call monday and let you gi know.

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Hi Shelley,

Ummmmm . . . not to make things even more confusing . . . but Chron's "can" worsen during the same time we have pms. Inflammation, in general, is higher. So those of us at the Lupus forum notice increased symptoms during that time too. Just a thought.

Has the gi doc seen inflammation in your colon/intestines? Would the prednisone help the endo too? Also, the entocort is released in the bowel . . . so if you don't have bowel issues, I wonder what the entocort is for????

Sorry its so hard to sort out this stuff.

I hope the entocort kicks in soon.

Blessings!

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In His Grip

AlwaysRosie           "We can't control the waves, but we can learn how to surf!!"

Psalms 139

Co-Moderator - Lupus Forum

UCTD, Inflammatory Arthritis, Diverticulosis, (recent dx - Sjogrens, Crohn’s 4/08)

Clickable Links:  Lupus Resources    Lupous.Org   Lupus Criteria (4 of 11)   Lupus Chapter Locator

I have been gone out of town for a few days.

You might consider a birth control pill that keeps you from having periods except once every 3 months or so. Right now, I'm on Yaz. It gives me a shorter, lighter cycle, which helps. I do notice some issues during my period.. constipation for a couple days and then free flow. Normally, it's about a 2-3 day process at most... Off the pill, it was more like 4-7. Almost debilitating. Now, it's shorter and MUCH more bearable...still need tylenol to get me through, but it's DEFINITELY better.

I considered the option of only having a cycle every 3 months (Seasonale I think?), but I'm still trying to bear children, so we're sticking with what flows best with my infertility treatments as well...

Endo and Crohn's are hard to distinguish. I have a family member fighting something similar. Still no definitive dx. I'm sorry you are battling all this....

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Kaycie - Age: 26
Crohn's - Dx Nov 05
Failed Remicade, moving onto a Clinical Trial called ABT-874 - Tentative start date - 10/2/08 - 10/16/08  - Infusion, every 4 weeks.
IVF #1 (In-Vitro Fertilization) - Failed
IVF #2 - IVIg, Heparin, Baby Aspirin - TWIN GIRLS!!!
Reagan Dawn - 8/2/07 - Lived 1 hour 27 minutes due to Cloaca, NOT affiliated with my Crohn's
Addison Maria - 8/2/07 - 13 months old

I have a period twice a year on birth control for this reason. They tend to bother my Crohn's, and my PMS is terrible on top of that. I LOVE it.

Since little of entocort gets in to your system, I'm not real sure how it would have been better for me. I seemed to have inflammation going on in different places besides my intestines. So when I went in to a flare pred brought it all under control.

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~Jennifer