Gastroenterologist Tina Storage, MD, discusses the application of a newly approved oral agent in the case of a 29-year-old male with severe, treatment-resistant UC.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this video are those of the physician and do not necessarily reflect the position of Adventist Health. The physician has no financial relationship or affiliation with the pharmaceutical companies mentioned. Any references to specific medications are for informational purposes only and should not be interpreted as endorsements.
Hi, my name is Doctor Tina Storage, and I'm a general gastroenterologist. I grew up here in San Fernando Valley and I was actually born here at Aventis Health Glendale, and the reason I was so excited to join Adventist Health Glendale is because I wanted to provide the high quality care that we were providing at a tertiary care medical center here in our backyard community. As a gastroenterologist, I see a multitude of different diagnoses, so things like acid reflux, bloating, constipation. Because I have a particular expertise in inflammatory bowel disease, I see complex cases of Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. Um, also, because I have an expertise in functional bowel disorders, I see a lot of irritable bowel syndrome, a lot of SEO, a lot of chronic bloating, where patients have seen multiple other gastroenterologists. What's really unique here is that if you do have a patient with chronic gastrointestinal symptoms like this, Where you haven't found the root cause, we have testing here where we can explore that. We also do microbiome analysis of patients' stool here because we're able to think outside the box and get unique testing like this, we're able to get at the crux of the issue and help patients feel better. And one particular case highlighting this is one of a 29 year old male who has severe ulcerative colitis. He was on multiple. Medications for this because he was having rectal bleeding and urgency and diarrhea and he stopped playing sports he stopped going to school this was really affecting his quality of life he was a refractory to missalamines to Remicade, Humira intivio he continued to have the bleeding, the rectal urgency, the diarrhea that prevented him from going out with friends and attending school and playing sports, so. The providers in the community didn't know what else to put him on because he had failed through 4 mainstay medications for ulcerative colitis. That's when he was referred to me here at Adventist Health Glendale, and we discussed the newer medications. These medications were just FDA approved in 2023, 2024, and most recently in 2025. We discussed Renvoc, Trefaya, and Skyriy. Renvoc was particularly interesting to him because Revoc is one pill a day. He said that would work for his quality of life. He could wake up, take that medication, and that would work for him, but he was not so hopeful that it would work for his disease because he had failed so many medications. We talked about how these medications are more effective and the wonderful part of it. Is that they have less side effects. So the side effects that he was worried about previously with all these medications that he ran through like cancer and infection, we don't see those same signals with these newer medications. So he was really excited to try, but naturally timid. Um, he started the medication. He called me a week later. I'm not having any more bleeding. I'm not having urgency, so we said, great, keep on it, come back in a month. He came back in a month. No symptoms. He was so excited about it. He went back to school, he went back to sports. He had his quality of life back, and he felt comfortable that these medications carried very little short term and long term side effects. I actually remember when he was in my office, he called Revoke one of the new medications we we prescribed him, his miracle multivitamin because he felt like he just took it every day. It was like a multivitamin and he could forget. The burden of his disease. I think what's really important is that with our patients here at Aventis Health Glendale, we really emphasize forming a bond with them and a rapport with them. We are making small changes to their lifestyle, which sometimes can be really hard. So establishing that rapport and that trust is really important, and then we can make little changes and make headway. I always tell patients when I meet them. You know, we're not going to solve this overnight, but I'm your healthcare partner and I'm here with you through the journey.
