Reply To: Cyclophosphamide (Chemotherapy)…someone tried it ?

Plasmapheresis and Plasma Exchange (PE) are similar, but very different. PE is usually recommended for CIDP. If it wasn’t PE, that could be why you had no response. The main difference is the tissue depth/penetration and the thoroughness of the cleansing process of PE.

I had about 80 PE’s in total to take out the antibodies that were attacking “self”. After that was taken care of, IVIg worked to keep my system from creating more bad antibodies. IVIg alone, won’t remove bad antibodies already in your system, that’s the job of PE.

One form of chemotherapy I’m aware of that has been proven to help CIDP is Rituxan. There was a clinical trial using Cyclophosphamide but it was withdrawn:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01236456

However, some evidence exists supporting its use to treat certain types of CIDP:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3105635