Jennifer Matthews: Doctors diagnosed Tara Roberts with Crohn's disease when she was 13-years-old. Since then, she's learned to live with stomach pain, fatigue, and worse.
Tara Roberts: There's no warning, no control. You live with diarrhea 24/7.
Jennifer Matthews: That's not easy when you're raising three busy kids.
Dr. William Sandborn of the Mayo Clinic is a Crohn's disease expert. He explains patients make a lot of protein that causes inflammation, so he's trying to find a drug that blocks the protein in the intestine. He thinks he's found one. It's called certolizumab pegol (CIMZIATM).
Dr. William Sandborn: It's sort of a smart bomb drug targeted very specifically towards this bad protein.
Jennifer Matthews: His study showed 65 percent of patients felt better after six months. This includes people who didn't respond to other drugs.
He says it's good to have options.
Dr. William Sandborn: It becomes very important to have two or three or four drugs in that class, because you can expect that any one of the drugs that the patient might take, that it's going to wear off.
Jennifer Matthews: Tara has tried several different medicines and settled on one called Remicade. She is technically in remission, but that could end tomorrow.
Tara Roberts: If Remicade were to ever stop working, it's nice to know that there's a backup there, something else that I would be able to try.
Jennifer Matthews: This is Jennifer Matthews reporting.
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