My first IVIG today - was thinking of all of you!

[ronnie]

Hi it's Ronnie,

I chased my doctor up last week after all my questions and he advised me to start ivig right away and I had my first infusion today! And, guess what?! - I'm fine. All my worry and I didn't feel a thing! I feel a little tired tonight but it was a big excursion and I'm pregnant so I should be a little worn out. The infusion took three hours and they didn't need to slow it down, in fact, they kept speeding it up. I don't actually know what dose I got though.

I can also feel my baby playing football so he doesn't seem to be feeling too bad either which was my biggest worry.

I hope I'm singing the same tune tomorrow! Now for my questions ( I always have questions) :

-Do I need to do anything special over the next couple of days?
-I didn't think I'd notice anything special at all but tonight I can breathe through my nose for the first time in literally six months, is this psychological?
-Even though the ivig should help me fight infection when it does come along does my low IgA mean that I am still more susceptable than average to catching bugs?

Thanks again,
Ronnie

[john]

hi ronnie,
well that's all good!
i don't know if i would be happy with going fast on my very first infusion though - what was the rush? it's usually the speed of infusion that causes headachey side effect, so why take that risk?
i still always feel tired after infusions, but almost always feel great the next morning - i have mine on wednesdays and do my volunteering job at the clinic every thursday, so that proves i feel well the day after!!
you don't need to do anything special till the next infusion, just keep the infusion site clean and make sure it heals, they always use exactly the same elbow site for mine so that patch of skin has become very valuable to me!!
i think your instant feeling of wellness is psychological (sorry!), cos in most every case i ever heard about it takes much longer to get a real improvement (me - i took over a year!!), but hey, we're all different aren't we?
i also have zero IgA, and i don't think this makes me more susceptible to picking up infections. my wife is my "control" and we usually pick up the same bugs at the same time, although she gets over hers much faster than me!
so there you go - you've joined one of the most exclusive clubs in the world!!
stay tuned and take care - john

[ronnie]

Thanks John,
I don't know why they put the infusion through so quickly. I asked how long they normally would do it over and they said 2 hours and they had actually slowed it down because I said I wanted to go very slowly. The side of the bottle said 'intragram' does the brand make a difference? I'm still making the most of breathing through my nose, odd huh!

[mali42]

Hi Ronnie
I'm glad it all went well,
They will start you off very slowly, its the same for me, 30 min on 4 drips nevery 15 seconds, then 8 drips, and then average 12 drips per 15 sec, its to stop us having a reaction having all those antibodies rushing into our system so we do it gradually,
When I started they didn't give me the full dose right away and gradually built up over 3 weeks to my full dosage.
Malcolm

[s162216]

Hi Ronnie,

Its great that it went fine for you and hopefully it'll make your life much better.

About 3 hours is probably the sort of time that I would expect, my first took about 4 and they raised it a bit every hour or so. Obviously I don't know how much you had. I went back every week for the next 2 weeks until it was determined my IgG levels had risen enough to be therapeutic and afterwards I had it every 3 weeks, they also increased the rate every week.

On my 4th one though they increased it to 80 drops per minute from 60 drops and I had terrible headaches for the next few days. Next time they tried it again at 80 drops with the same result so I've had all my subsequent infusions at 60 drops per minute. If I go over that then headaches result.

The IVIG will protect you against infections that it has antibodies for (all diseases which are vaccinated against as well as anything which the 1000 blood plasma donors who have contributed to each bottle have encountered and made antibodies against) so your immune system is in a much better state then before. Unfortunately as IgG doesn't protect the upper respiratory tract (which is the job of IgA), your protection of this area is not enhanced so your still vulnerable to upper respiratory tract infections. (See the post I made in your other thread to see what different immunoglobulins do) but more importantly all other areas are much better protected than before (remember that its not perfect though and some infections will get through).