sigh! one week on Entocort and I have my first cold...

Linda in BC · Post by **Linda in BC** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:25 am

I had not realized when I decided to go on Entocort that it was an immune system suppressant and that is a main feature of how it reduces the inflammation in our intestines. My first thought when i found this out last week, was ,"0h no..here come the colds and flus" and true to Murphey's law, I started with a major sore throat last night and feel absolutely miserable this morning. With the help of the zinc lozenges the sore throat has abated somewhat.

Over the last ten years I have (understandably) been very susceptible to colds and flues and to make matters worse, I work based out of an elementary school, a hot house for these germs.

It is interesting though, LDN supposedly boosts the immune system ( how it can help the food reactions I don't know but it did) and the entire time I was on LDN, I did not have one viral illness. Mind you it was summer, but there were people around me who did have them and I never got sick.

Anyway, needless to say, I am not very happy about this immune system suppression thing. I am down to two Entocort a day, and seem to be maintaining my new found Norman status on that. In its self that is amazing because in the past I have always gotten way more D. when my body was fighting a cold or flu. Looking forward to reducing the Entocort as soon as possible tho, (realizing it will be a few months) because I do not look forward to a winter full of flues and colds with a compromised immune system. Struggling now to decide if I should get the flu shot...
Taking lots of D and C, and having a lazy morning

Linda

Joefnh · Post by **Joefnh** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:25 pm

Linda I'm sorry to hear about your cold, but I would highly doubt that it is due to the Entocort. Entocort mainly stays in the GI tract and very little actually makes it into you blood stream to suppress the immune system. It does act locally in the GI tract to suppress the immune system, and then only in the terminal ilium and the colon. You can think of it almost as an ointment that is more topical in nature.

Overall you can equate 9mg of Entocort to taking about 15mg of prednisone a day. At those doses it would take many months to even begin to suppress the immune system. I think it would be safe to say you getting this cold is just the normal role of the dice as the weather gets colder etc. I don't know about in your area but this past week we had our first few hard freezes at night. That normally is the start of the cold and flu season for us.

Best wishes

-Joe

Post by **tex** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 12:27 pm

Hi Linda,

Sorry about the cold. Maybe you were just unlucky, and encountered an unusually potent strain of the virus.

If you want to try to prevent the cold from fully developing, you could try a therapeutic dose of vitamin D, (50,000 IU per day, for 3 days - this is Dr. Cannell's recommendation). Usually, if you start that dose early enough in the development of a cold or flu virus, it will prevent the virus from reaching it's full potential, and the virus will usually fade away, relatively quickly. "Early enough" is generally considered to be within the first two days of the first sign of clinical symptoms. I always keep a bottle of 50,000 IU capsules on hand, just for that purpose. Just be sure that your supplement is vitamin D3, (not D2), in order to avoid the risk of hypercalcemia.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi70.html

Tex

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Sat Oct 16, 2010 10:13 pm

Joe wrote:You can think of it almost as an ointment that is more topical in nature.

I like that description.

Linda,

I've never noticed an increased susceptibility to contagious infections while I've been on Entocort. I felt like I was getting a cold while I was in Utah and continued to take my 3,000 units of vitamin D. I was fine the next day.

I hope you get over it soon.

Gloria

Linda in BC · Post by **Linda in BC** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 8:06 am

Well, thanks everyone. That info is reassuring because I do not need to be anymore susceptible to colds than I naturally am!

Linda

hoosier1 · Post by **hoosier1** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 7:27 pm

Hi Linda,

Want some company? I have developed a sore throat as well. Been on Entocort 1.5 months. See my doc Tuesday.

Hope you get well soon and maintain Norman through this. I know they say Entocort is mostly absorbed in the GI, but my arthritis in my hands has disappeared so it appears it have more of a systemic immune suppression action than I had anticipated. At least it is doing something positive for me

Rich

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Sun Oct 17, 2010 9:26 pm

Joe wrote:my arthritis in my hands has disappeared so it appears it have more of a systemic immune suppression action than I had anticipated.

It's hard to say whether that's due to not eating gluten anymore or due to Entocort. I've also found that the pain in my hands disappear when I'm on Entocort, but once I taper off of it, the pain returns somewhat. The pain is not as severe as I had before I removed gluten, though.

Gloria

Joefnh · Post by **Joefnh** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:34 am

Linda & Rich, given that with a 9mg dose of Entocort you do receive a small dose systemically of a corticosteroid, that will help the aches and pains anywhere in your bodies.

Entocort is about 15 times stronger than prednisone, so a 9mg dose of Entocort is equivalent to 135mg of prednisone. Now only about 10 -12% of the 135mg actually makes it outside of your GI tract and into your bloodstream. So overall the equivalent dose of prednisone that we get from 9 mg of Entocort is about 15mg.

Overall 15mg is a low dose that will help with the aches and pains, but will take quite a while to start suppressing the bodies immune system,which can lead to potential issues with infections etc. The best I can tell by the literature is that it takes many months (about 6) to start to see suppression with this low of a dose of steroids.

I found that initially with the Entocort that the various joint pains that I was dealing with did initially totally disappear, but after about the 3rd month they started to return. This most likely was due to developing a tolerance to that dosage.

It was at this time that I first tried acupuncture while in Brisbane, and was quite surprised at how much that helped. I have relied on the acupuncture since then to help out with the joint and muscle pains.

--Joe

Linda in BC · Post by **Linda in BC** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:08 pm

Joe, thank you for this very useful information. I was doing a bit of research on my own and found this quote, “Prednisone in daily doses for adults of 10 mg or less is not considered immunosuppressive.. “ but it would have been useless without your valuable equivalency info. I am only taking 6mg of Entocort/day so I guess I am below that level.

Linda