Can anyone tell me about Remicade?

[Vanessa Rose]

5. Remicade

I was on remicade infusions for about eight months. My medical condition was very different from yours, so I don't know how it will work for you. It didn't work for me and the side effects were eventually life threatening to me. As you probably know, any biologic suppresses your immune system. I started experiencing extreme weight loss and severe migrating pain all over my body. I contracted a massive infection. My body was fighting it so hard that all nutrition I was eating was going toward the fight against the infection. I lost 1/6 of my body weight in six months. When I ended up in the hospital, I was severely malnourished, extremely anemic, had pneumonia, had a terrible infection in the sac surrounding my lung. And still had the raging infection. I ended up having surgery and two chest tubes. They were never able to diagnose the infection. Each doctor I saw prior to the hospitalization, told me that remicade was poison. It took me a year to get well. The remicade did not cause the infection, but it suppressed my immune system that whatever I got was able to take hold.