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Our son had his first fire ant shot last week, and Kari's email has me thinking. After our son's first shot, he had no reaction I had expected or read about. . . . But on the third day after the injection, I noticed redness and slight puffiness around the site of his prior fire ant stings (on his foot, no where close to the area of the injection in his arm). I gave him an oral antihistimine and put some topical antihistimine cream on his foot just to be safe. Has anyone seen anything like that so long after an injection? I will definitely mention what I saw at shot clinic tomorrow, but in case they say they have never seen or heard of anything like this before, I thought I'd ask here too. Thanks!
From: David Glaser <david@...>
To: insectstings@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 1:26:52 AM
Subject: [insectstings] Reacting to Immunotherapy
Sorry to hear that you have had early reactions but they do happen!
First of all let us all remember that the great majority of people
have immunotherapy with no reaction at all. Nothing! It is only the
unfortunate small minority that do. And of course it is those people
that arrive here on this group which makes immunotherapy seem a lot
more dramatic than it typically is!
Without going into point scoring this writer had full blown
anaphylaxis to the first and second dose of venom so bad reactions
can happen at early stages which is why immunotherapy should always
be close to the ER and there should be trained medics able to give
serious treatment if required. However it is definitely more common
to have reactions further along the road as you approach the 25 micro
gram levels.
As for your own situation, I would definitely tell your doctor as the
standard routine, if you have a bad reaction, is to go back a dose
rather than go up a dose next time. Also, and this has been a point
of much debate on this Group and amongst professionals, it is
strongly recommended by some that you take an anti-histamine before
treatment as this can help with the minor systems too.
The flu like systems are definitely common and are good news. I
always new that if they occured then the reaction would not be a
systemic one - a reassuring tiredness would come over me very quickly
and I just want to sleep. Some six years later, with my shots
happening every six weeks, I still get tired and have the flu like
systems.
So, if you are having problems it is perfectly OK to go back to an
earlier dose again and build up at a different rate. In my own case
I started off at 1/1000th of the normal starting dose and took 26
weeks to get to the maintenance dose and that was much less of a
problem to me than the standard regime.
Some people have rush immunotherapy - can take three days to get to
the top dose with three or four shots per day!
The point is that immunotherapy can be done at different rates and
the standard rate does not suit all people. My own feeling is that
venom immunotherapy is safe for everyone provided that the right rate
is selected from the start and the patients body signals are watched
and monitored.
I hope that helps!
David
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