A year of Humira

Climbed by year and month

Climbed by year and month

A year to the day. 22nd December last year I started on Humira, the other Crohn's treatments were just horrible, horrible and nasty, or plain zombifying! So it wasn't easy to start yet another drug and honestly I was scared witless. I wasn't too keen on injecting it myself either but it promised great things and there weren't many other options on the table. I actually chose it; I was asked Remicade or Humira? The former means going into hospital every 8weeks for half-a-day to have a mouse/human chimeric antibody infused into you. The latter inject yourself at home with the fully humanised antibody every two weeks with a point and click pen style injector.

It hasn't been entirely plain sailing; the usual dose is one a fortnight. I'm now on one a week. And there is that thought stuck at the back of my mind that it wont last, either it'll just stop working or I'll contract a virus or infection and have to come off it. Even a temporary halt scares me as Crohn's symptoms are not pleasant.

This year I spent a fair bit of time in Scotland walking the hills. Traveling with Humira threatened to be quite a nightmare, it needs to be kept in the fridge, especially as I wanted to be away for a few weeks at a time across multiple injections. It turned out to be less problematic than feared as the wardens at SYHA hostels will usually take in medication for safe keeping and have a fridge in a back room which isn't publicly accessible. Without Fiona and Beryl at Crianlarich YH my trips would have been more much difficult to organise, or severely curtailed. I'll have some great memories of those trips for a long time.

So what of the next year? Well I need to get back to earning a living as my savings run ever downwards and wont last forever. We've got some plans brewing and maybe this coming year they'll come to fruition. We'll have to see. I know I'll be keeping my fingers crossed, literally or metaphorically, that I don't have to think about Crohn's any more than once a week!