Reply To: Tell me about plasma exchange
I was on a typical combination of PE with Prednisone. I started treatments with a central venous tunneled catheter. I felt improvement 3 days after my first treatment. I went on to about 50 PE’s all together because IVIg never did anything for me.
More info about PE can be read here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11406009
http://www.transfusionguidelines.org
A rapid onset of CIDP symptoms and worsening conditions are best treated (in my opinion and based on my experiences with the disease) first with 3-4 days of Plasma Exchange, followed by 8-10 days of IVIg or SCIg. Sometimes an immunosuppressant drug may be needed to help the treatment to work.
It should be noted that PE will cancel out IVIg/SCIg and Rituximab. Ig will cancel the effects of PE and seriously reduce the benefit of Rituxan. So the order of treatments would be important for best results.