Quote:
Originally Posted by FREDH
Hi everyone,
While in the hospital after a crisis, I took the plasmapheresis treatment. even though it helped a lot, after several weeks, I have had a return of weakness in my arms and some neck weakness. Hard to raise my arms above my waist until I have had several Mestinon pills (taking 90mg every 2 hours),
Has anyone had anything like this? I would like to think this would go away, or improve at least.
Any input will be welcome.
FREDH
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Sorry, Fred, but all that plasmapheresis can do for you is remove the offending antibodies from your blood, and it does a very good job of that. But, your body starts replacing them immediately, so depending on how long this takes to reach a certain level that creates symptoms, you will continue to be symptomatic.
You will need some type of immune suppression to stop this manufacturing process, such as prednisone or some of the other steroid sparing immunosuppressants.
I am currently getting a plasmapheresis treatment every other week to lessen my antibody load and that keeps me as functional as I can hope to be. I can't take prednisone and the others haven't worked, but I have a very treatment resistant form of LEMS.
Let your doctor know of your return of symptoms so he can decide the best course of treatment.