Have I been having one flare after another or just one really long flare?
I looked up what the definition of "remission" is, and basically, it is an absence of symptoms related to a chronic condition or disease. Some defined remission as a partial disappearance of symptoms due to medications.
Okay, then.
My first symptoms were in January of 2021. It has now been over 27 months and I have never had an absence of symptoms since then. Partial, yes. Full, no.
I have tried four different maintenance medications to no avail: Balsalazide, Sulfasalazine (terrific side-effects), Budesonide, and Mesalamine. (My G.I. doctor wants me to stay on Mesalamine in combination with other medicine we're trying, but alone it did nothing.) The only time I come close to full or almost-full remission is when I'm on prednisone. But of course, prednisone is not a maintenance medication because of short and long-term undesirable side-effects.
I've been on four rounds of prednisone (currently on fifth) and my symptoms always get better. But then I taper off, and BAM, there they are again, usually after four to six weeks of being off. Rinvoq seems to be the only medicine close to helping, but I'm getting ready to go on a lower "maintenance" dose, which is how it is done. However, I haven't gotten to a complete absence of symptoms yet, which is why I've been put back on the prednisone.
So that is why I ask . . . have I ever been in remission? Or in partial remission? Is "prednisone remission" a thing?
When someone asks me if I've been in remission, I honestly don't know how to answer them. My gut feeling is, well, no . . . not yet. But I have had bouts of being and feeling better.
I guess that means that I'm going forward with the thought that I haven't reached remission yet, but we're working on it, still in the stage of experimenting with various types of available medications and waiting upon the results.
Not the shortest answer, but probably the most accurate.
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