Did you take Benadryl during your IVIG?

I take mine for 2 days after IVIG and it has helped.

Rhonda from Canada

I work at a Children’s hospital were there are lots of MRIs done. Reactions to gadolinium dye are rare, but the most common one is a feeling of warmth when the dye is given. We usually tell the kids and parents that this may happen so that it is not scarey if it does (similarly the dye for CT scans often makes people feel like they have just peed on themselves when they have not). The second most common reaction with MRI dye (gadolinium) is a mild skin rash. This is usually not a problem and will go away typically in a day or less. The problem to watch out for most are trouble breathing or swelling of the airway (an acute allergic reaction) that is very rare or trouble with kidney function after a scan. It is always good to drink plenty of fluids after an MRI to keep the kidneys happy.

Just a tiny clarification to what Dawn wrote–the dye for MRIs does not have iodine. This is used as part of the dye for CT scans not for MRI scans. The dye for MRI has gadolinium. If ever you have another MRI scan, tell them about your reaction, but as long as the skin rash is not severe, it probably would not affect getting another MRI.

One other thing is that it is really common to feel warm during an MRI even if gadolinium is not given. That is one of the things I liked best about it–that I felt warm all over. Of course, I was also trying to think of positives because I am not terribly fond of small places.
WithHope

How is Kevie doing now? Have the hives and lip swelling resolved completely?
Hives can happen from a lot of things including lotions/santitizers and other things put on the skin, things eaten like fish/shellfish/peanuts/strawberries, etc, illnesses like strep throat and some viruses, as well as medicines such as IV IgG. It is unusual however for IV IgG to do this–late rashes are more characteristic of small molecule medicines like penicillin. There is something called a delayed hypersensitivity reaction that can happen in which the cells of the immune system are activated to cause a reaction and in which the allergic reaction is delayed. This is in contrast to the immediate hypersensitivity allergic reactions that result from the bodies own immunoglobulin. A delay can be due to the fact that someone is reacting to something that has to be altered before causing an allergy such as processed and presented to the cells. A delay can also be due to previous exposure long ago to a protein or something not made by a person’s own body. The reaction to this calms down, but on reexposure, it gears up again. It takes a little while to gear up again. If this was the IV IgG, my guess is that was more likely due to another protein that got mixed into the IV IgG because it is not 100.000% pure. Whenever someone has a delayed reaction, you want to be cautious about a stronger or faster reaction in the future so make sure that you and the nurses keep a good eye of Kevie at his next infusion and make sure that the neurologist knows about the reaction. Because people can have a reaction to IV IgG, nurses/doctors administering it should have available “reaction medicines” including benadryl, hydrocortisone or other steroid and potentially epinephrine. I do not say this to scare you, because it is very, very, very unlikely, but kids are precious and a little bit of preparation to react to something IF IT WERE TO HAPPEN can make a big difference in those extremely rare situations. Hopefully this was due to the santitizer–was this put on Kevie???

As others have noted, a person’s immune reactions are not the same after having an immunologic disease or receiving medicines that alter the immune response.

You said that Kevie is taking benadryl, clarinex, and zantac for the rash. Zantac is a histamine blocker that blocks a different receptor than benadryl does. If someone has a significant reaction, sometimes both are used because together they may work better.

I hope he is back to feeling like himself and the hives are gone.
With Hope for cure of these diseases.