Are Your Symptoms Well Controlled?

Are your Crohn's disease symptoms interfering with your life?

Having Crohn’s disease can take a toll on you, both emotionally and physically. Think about how Crohn's gets in the way of living your life. You know better than anyone how Crohn’s makes you feel and the struggles it creates for you. But did you know that your symptoms and the day-to-day impact of Crohn's can also indicate how well your treatment is working? Talk to your doctor about how you're feeling. Helping your doctor understand the severity and activity of your Crohn’s can help your doctor recommend treatment options.

What's happening in your gut?

Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD. It causes inflammation of the digestive tract. Crohn's disease usually occurs in the small intestine (the ileum) and the large intestine (the colon), but it can happen anywhere in the digestive tract.

When you have Crohn's disease, your immune system produces too much of a protein called tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha). TNF-alpha attacks healthy cells in your gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This triggers the inflammation that leads to the painful symptoms of Crohn's disease. Typical Crohn's disease symptoms include frequent diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, and sometimes rectal bleeding. It can also lead to damage to your GI tract that may require surgery.

The importance of getting your symptoms under control

As long as active disease is present, you will continue to experience flare-ups and risk further damage to your GI tract. Also, the longer your disease is active, the more likely it is that you will need surgery. That’s why talking to your doctor regularly about your symptoms is an important part of managing your disease.

Patients 65 years of age or older, patients with other long term medical conditions, or taking certain other drugs that affect the immune system, such as corticosteroids or methotrexate, may be at a greater risk of infection.

There have been cases of unusual cancers in children and teenage patients using TNF-blockers. For people taking TNF-blockers, including CIMZIA, the chances of getting lymphoma may increase. People with RA, especially more serious RA, may have a higher chance for getting a kind of cancer called lymphoma. CIMZIA is not approved for use in pediatric patients.

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