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Showing posts from August, 2016

When Your Medication Stops Working

It's 4:48 am as I sit down to write this.  I've been up since about 3 after waking up at 1 for the second night in a row.  This is familiar territory as insomnia is a big warning flag that the ol' Crohn's disease is getting up out of its corner to have another tantrum.  Been here, done this. Except this time there's a big difference from flare ups of recent memory - I'm being a good patient and am taking my medication.  In the past I would stop my meds due to pregnancy or stubbornness or worry about side effects.  You've seen those Humira commercials right?  May cause cancer, heart disease, or serious or fatal infections.  You know, standard side effect stuff. Since 2004 I've been on 3 different anti-TNF (tumor necrosis factor) drugs to treat Crohn's:  Infliximab (Remicade), Adalimbumab (Humira), and my latest Certolizumab Pegol (Cimzia).  Remicade and I had a short relationship as I developed an allergy after about 6 months.  This was back whe

Sweet Home Chicago

In case you missed it, I live in Chicago.  Well, I live in the suburbs of Chicago again, not far from where I grew up because parents = free child care.  The suburbs are OK, I suppose, but I'm more of an urban gal.  Which is why our practice is located in Oak Park.  Technically a suburb, but the first one just west of Chicago.  You can get downtown via the CTA, or "L", as we like to call it.  It's a whopping 10 miles to the lake (Michigan). Voted one of the best skylines in the world. Chicago has a lot of reputations.  I'd say our most recent is being the murder capital of the country because we have a bit of a problem with shootings in our poor neighborhoods.  A culmination of extreme segregation, oppression, and gentrification into neighborhoods that resulted in the razing of low income housing and disrupted well-established gang territories.  But that's a whole other set of conversations. Today I want to talk about food.  Specifically, two things C