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.

crossing fingers for continued good results!

I have been on cimzia for awhile now, I like it. My doctor switched me to it after my insurance changed, and would no longer cover simponi. I was pretty upset about that because Simponi worked great for me. However, cimzia is working great. My flare ups are down to one in every few months. So that is good for me.

I've started cimzia. I will take my second loading dose Monday. I was in a terrible flare prior to starting with in 2 days of taking the first loading dose the pain was gone. But it seems that is wearing off during the last 3 days or so. I. Hoping it will last longer as I i continue treatment.

Good luck, Bax. Hope it works well for you.

It was the same for me. During the initial loading doses, it would work great for a few days,then start wearing off. For me,nthe medicine still starts to wear off around the end of the second week for me, which is fine because it usually fall right on the date for my next injection.

I've been one it for over a year now, and I ampleased. I truly hope it continues to help you. Let us know if we can help.

To update the thread----It's now been a year on Cimzia for PsA. So far, so good. Had a huge flare in late August (around 9 months of treatment) that required me to go on steroids for a time, and thought this was the point it was going to stop working for me. But it rebounded after the flare, which lasted around 6 weeks. I've gotten back to the baseline I had before the flare. We'll see how this does for the long haul. It's uncharted territory for me as I've never made it past 9 months on a biologic before. Makes me wonder if I was always flaring at 9 months and it only SEEMED like the med had stopped working? Not much hope in finding out what the truth is there, though if this one quits sometime, I wouldn't mind going back to Enbrel (twice-weekly dosing) as it was the one that worked best of the ones I have previously tried. Going from two shots once a month to one shot twice a week would be a big change, but not a deal-breaker. For those on Cimzia, hope it is working well for you.

I've been on Cimzia for 8mo for AS with peripheral symptoms and a really nasty enthesitis in my hip.

I tried going to monthly dosing and those last ten days were just awful. Now I do every two weeks unless necessary to double-dose for travel and it gets bad around 5 days before I'm due. At least it's working better than the Enbrel, which stopped working altogether.

Sorry you are having trouble with it. Maybe it's just a huge flare and things will get better soon? Hope you get better. Gentle hugs.

Well, I seem to be doing better now. I'm back to monthly CIMZIA without a problem.

I gave Cimzia two months, but it did not work for me. Instead, it would make me feel totally exhausted for two days after the shot. Then 2nd shot, I woke up with a terrible sinus infection the next day. It took an entire month to get the sinus infection cleared up, and I felt even worse after giving this drug a try. I'm switching back to LDN. It wasn't perfect, but at least I could function!

Yea for MikeGinnyMD. Glad to hear it got better for you. Going on 16 months and despite a nasty sinus infection, things are going okay with Cimzia. May have to delay next shots because of antibiotics, but it won't be bad. I had to delay previous month by 2 weeks because of having some toenails permanently removed. Didn't really lose ground that time. Most trouble I've got this spring is the storm fronts coming across the plains. Ouch in the joints.

Lindyap, sorry it didn't work for you.