Choices within Kaiser

Anonymous

November 2, 2008 at 1:11 am

[COLOR=black]Hello Ally,[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]I too am with Kaiser, in SoCal. When I used IVIg, I received Carimmune. I asked my neurologist what we would do if I did not tolerate it well. He said that, with the proper planning, I could have any brand that worked. I would ask your neurologist to consider a different brand for your next IVIg treatment, since you have bad side effects with the two brands you have been using.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]My guess is, though, that he will want to adjust the rates first. I found that 200 ml/hr was too fast for me, but that 150 ml/hr was OK. Since Octagam seems to give you better results, ask your neurologist to write the orders for Octagam and to limit the rate to 100 ml/hr. If you have more improvement and fewer side effects, then try a somewhat higher rate the next time. If not, try a slower rate, although I suspect your infusion center won’t want to go much below 75 ml/hr. What I wanted to do was find the rate that gave me mild side effects, but was not so slow that my treatment was going to take forever. As it was, my infusions were very long because I am a heavy man.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]If you find that even a slow rate does not help, ask your neurologist to switch you to a different brand. It can be done, but he will have to do some extra work. For reference, these are the brands of IVIg available in the USA (as best as I can tell):[/COLOR]
[LIST]
[*][COLOR=black]Baxter Gammaguard Liquid[/COLOR]
[*][COLOR=black]Baxter Gammaguard S/D (may be superseded by Liquid, above)[/COLOR]
[*][COLOR=black]CSL Behring Privigen (at least, it was set to launch in 2008)[/COLOR]
[*][COLOR=black]CSL Behring Carimmune NF[/COLOR]
[*][COLOR=black]Grifols Flebogamma (may be superseded by DIF, below)[/COLOR]
[*][COLOR=black]Grifols Flebogamma DIF[/COLOR]
[*][COLOR=black]Octapharma Octagam[/COLOR]
[*][COLOR=black]Talecris Biotherapeutics Gammunex[/COLOR][/LIST][COLOR=black]Godspeed in finding the right combination of rates, brands, and side effect treatments.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=black]MarkEns[/COLOR]