Finally some good news from my immunologist!

Saw my immunologist Tuesday. I heard from him 5 weeks ago (I normally only see him every 3 months) and at that time he increased my treatment dose from 60 ml to 70 ml. This was actually a good thing as the most recent blood work showed improvement in my IgG levels, but I didn't have hardcopy to see what the actual improvement was. I'm guessing that if I hadn't shown improvement, they wouldn't have wanted to waste the additional Vivaglobin if I wasn't responding to it.

Today I got hardcopy.

On August 12, my IgG level was 164, the normal range is 694-1618 (mg/dL). This was after diagnosis but before treatment, which began 8/13. (There are two other immune globins, IgA and IgM, but apparently they're not really important.)

On September 23, it was 613.

And on October 13 it was 638. An increase of almost 4x.

So still a little low, but GREAT improvement.

He said I can go back to school in the spring, I just need to be careful if there's a flu outbreak or something. Since most of the seasonal flu season is over, I've done pretty well. I've been immunized against pneumonia and seasonal flu, and after Thanksgiving I'll be getting a test to see if my body has built up immunities based on the immunizations that I got in the middle of October. Still no idea when/if I'll be able to get H1N1 vaccine.

(Yes, I have begun treatment and haven't written about it, that's my next post and should be up within a week.)