Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives Anti TNF and other biological medications Cimzia is working well after 6 months

Good news for the day. After 6 months on Cimzia, it has finally lasted through the whole month. After 5 months, it did pretty well up through the last 5-6 days of the month. But today I really didn't feel like it was time for a dose and recounted the weeks on my calendar, just in case I was too soon. LOL.

This is my 5th biologic, having tried Remicade, Enbrel, Simponi and Humira already. Of those, Simponi is also dosed monthly and it never lasted the whole month. I gave it up after 9 months. I've never made it past 9 months on any of them, so the next few months will be very interesting.

Well, just wanted to shout out about Cimzia. Not many of us taking it yet, but it's good stuff!

Hi

Thats good to hear! I'm about to start taking it. It will be my first biologic, well actually my first real treatment for AS.

I've just been recently diagnosed - although with the spinal and pelvic fusion apparently its been around for a while..

Dave.

Good luck with Cimzia. I'm impressed that it is working so well, especially after going through so many biologics already.

This is really great to hear!

Hope you're still doing well, rumble. I too, have started Cimzia. I already felt an effect, the day after my first shots. That has however also happened with the previous biologics (that I failed) so I do not really interpret that as a sign of success. It is of course better than no effect at all, and I do enjoy the slight ease of pain. Even if only temporary. This is my fourth biologic, so I'd really appreciate if it would work

I would love to try out one of the bios to see if it would help me but I am not game. It really sucks that you have to leave some problems like AS and psoriatic arthritis on the back burner because I have bigger fish to fry. At the moment it is nephrotic syndrome from an unknown auto -immune disease of my kidneys. I have gone from losing seven grams of protein a day thru my kidneys down to 1.8 grams on cyclosporine. My nephrologist is being super cautious my serum levels of cyclo measured in the trough before I take my morning dose is a little high but he does not want to interfere whilst it is working so well. Theoretically it should be helping my AS and psa but it does not seem to. I guess that my kidney disease is life threatening so I am just going to have to be satisfied with one out of three. I am glad the bios are working for most of you, Ron.

Immediately after crowing about the wonderful results, I was afflicted with a terrible flare. After a week of trying to get it under control, I resorted to a long steroid taper, starting with 30mg of prednisone. So far, that is holding. The most recent injections got me largely back in shape, though a bit of sciatica has been bothersome in past week. It's eased up now (knock wood--lol).

Good luck, millford. Hope you get some benefit from it.

Thanks, rumble. I'm experiencing some reduced stiffness and inflammation. Not a lot, but at least it's not getting worse. Still have that terrible flue feeling though. Ibuprofen and codeine around the clock.

Sorry to hear about the flare. That's the terrible unpredictability of this disease, isn't it?
It's like dealing with a crazy person. You never know what's coming. It can be quite exhausting at times. This is a disease that's very hard to accept or get "comfortable" with.

Hope the Cimzia will keep doing its job when you're off the pred

Rumble,
I'm really pleased Cimza is working for you. I don't think its licenced yet for A.S within the U.K.
I'm starting my 3rd Anti Tnf soon. Have been on Remicade for 5 years, with good results. Humira for 5 years, good results for 3 of them. Soon to try Simponi.
For me Anti Tnf usually takes 6-12 weeks before it starts to work. Slow acting, slow for the beneficial results to wear off too.
Hope Cimza keeps working well for you.

I've now finished 10 months on Cimzia. Had a flare in August/September that scared me into thinking the good times were over and this would end up like all the others, failing after 8-9 months. But with a few days of some stiff steroids, the flare eased up some and I gradually got back to baseline. So Cimzia continues working pretty well into the end of a year...uncharted territory for me...almost a year on the same biologic. For the previous ones that worked without issues, the initial good effect was lagging by 5-7 months and were d/c'd at 7-9 months.

If you are trying one after another without success, don't give up. They are all a little different and it may take some time to find what works for you. It just takes so darn long to test them out when you have to give 5-6 months to each one (barring severe side-effects) to see if it helps. I think I started the first one (Remicade) in fall of 2010. Nothing is fast in this disease, unfortunately.