Half-life of ivig and steroid side effects

exosurf,

I wanna pop out with a number of 21 days for ivig half life.

I found this on the National Institiutes of Health (NIH) web site.
“…The serum half-lives of IgG were highly variable, ranging from 22 to 96 days… Patients with the highest serum IgG concentrations tended to have the longest half-lives, suggesting that intrinsic IgG production might falsely prolong the calculated half-life of IgG.”

So, it would seem that the more ivig your body normally produces the higher your individual half life will be. As to the effectiveness of ivig, ‘they’ told me at Mayo clinic, Mn ‘..you can expect maximum effect (in terms of emg/ncv response) after 30 days from the last treatment.

As for steroids, I hope you’ll reconsider. In the beginning I felt that way too! And, to date, I have not yet taken steroids. But, if ivig fails to work for you, then steroids and chemo, even stemcell transplant become an option.

The bottom line for me is, according to a Neuromuscular Specialist at UCSD La Jolla, Ca “…”IVIG alone does nothing to promote remission.”

Anyway, the answer, as you’ve discovered is in your and your doctors’ hands. Your office visit muscle strength is either higher, lower or unchanged. Tailor the treatment to the higher, unchanged end of the spectrum.

And, I agree with markens. 25 g of ivig is not much, it seems. Unless you really do weigh only 130 lbs. Let’s calculate- 130 lb = 58.9670 kg. Therefore .4g/kg*60kg = 24g. that’s close enough. By comparison, I receive .4g/kg (for me = about 35g) 3 days in a row every three weeks. For 3 months I received .4g/kg twice a week! And my treatments began with the ‘standard’ initial loading dose of 2g/kg, usually given over 5 days. For you that would be 2g/kg*60g = 120g/5 = 24g per day for 5 days.

Shooting pains and their treatment and response are highly variable.