2nd dose of Rituxan today

Well, I had my second dose of Rituxan today. I didn't post after the first one last Monday and probably should have. I reacted to the medicine about 45 minutes into the first dose with swelling in my throat and trouble breathing. I was given benadryl and tylenol as a pretreatment but was not given prednisone to pretreat because I had just finished a round of Decadron a few days before. Anyway, when I reacted, the IV was stopped and the nurse gave me 100mg prednisone by IV which helped get everything back to normal. I was able to finish the treatment...slowly...in about 8 hours total.

The second treatment went better. I was given 20 mg decadron IV with my other pre treatment meds and didn't react until it was almost over,k and then only just a little swelling in my throat. It's almost hard to tell if it is a reaction or if I am coming down with something. (lots of people in my life are sick and I am trying to stay away!) The swelling has gone down some now that it is several hours later.

My platelets have been up and down since August. They drop to the single digits then rebound after 4 days on 40 mg decadron. They were at 18 today.

Since Rituxan takes time to work, what do doctors do to help low numbers the 4 week treatment. More decadron??? I can't stand the thought. My stomach feels like it will never be normal again!

I'll post again after my next treatment.

Hanging in there....

Bindy:

My counts during my 4 weeks of Rituxan were like this: 11, 3, 8 and 150. I pretty much just had low counts until Rituxan kicked in.

If you had some steroid IV's during the Rituxan infusions, they may help. I had Solumedrol during mine and they obviously didn't do anything. I could have taken Prednisone (and my hemo did suggest it), but I wanted to see what Rituxan did on it's own.

Maybe you'll get a quick response in which case you won't have to wait long. Good luck!

Hoping you don'g have any reaction at all for the 2 remaining treatments. I was on NPlate for the first 2 or 3 treatments of Rituxan. When I stopped the NPlate my counts did drop, but I think the Rituxan was working to keep my counts in an acceptable range. I wouldn't go back on Prednisone for anything in the world!