Coley's Toxins IV #4 - On the right track

She was rather tired over the weekend. The Issels doctors prescribed IV protein + Magnesium to replenish her (a CBC done on Saturday morning showed that her protein levels had dropped to 5.8 g/dL (normal minimum being 6.0). The doctor had already predicted it may happen before the CBC was done. The doctor said that drops in protein levels may happen when you have fevers. This, by the way, is one of the advantages of doing Coleys at a place that has a long legacy of doing immunotherapy.

Anyway, the doctors think that her tiredness on Sunday was probably due to her body replenishing after the draining fevers. We decided then to stick with the same CFIV dosage (0.0005mL) and see what temperature she'll achieve with less aggressive pre-heating.

As usual, we had our breakfast from 830-930am. However, after last week's experiences, we concluded there was no way that the Coley Fluid infusion would begin on time at around 11am (The MBVax protocol calls for 2 hours of no food prior to start of IV). Thus, I advised her to eat a good breakfast, knowing that she'll have no lunch.

As it turns out, today's Coley's began even later. By the time we got the diluted solution hooked up to her PICC port, it was about 2:00pm. By that time, it was 5 hours after breakfast and she was already getting hungry. I started her on the oral electrolytes to keep her energy up (there's a good amount of sugar in there).

As planned, we kept the heat pad on a lower setting and modulated other variables such as the number of blankets and room thermostat. Our guiding principle was to keep her warm but avoid making her sweat.

Things went slow and there was no indication of chills or fever for quite a while. But about 2 hours after infusion start, her hands began to feel tingly and she felt some light chills. This seemed to be a delayed response as compared to previous weeks, but nevertheless a response. At 4:30pm her temperature broke through to 102.7F and stayed above 102.5 until 6:00pm. As we had hoped for, she experienced no dehydration, no major drop in blood pressure, no need for oxygen, no flushing of the face. We were ecstatic. Furthermore, she only needed to drink a little over 2 cups of the oral electrolyte formula (as opposed to 6 cups last Friday).

Overall, today's fever was a successful one. 1 1/2 hours above 102.5, with a peak of 102.9F. Not a very high fever, but still a good one. One should also note that the fever was significantly higher than last Friday's treatment, although at the same CFIV dose level. This further corroborates our thinking that dehydration robs the body of energy to mount a good fever.

As aforementioned, there were few unpleasant side effects, the primary one being tiredness and fatigue. The main thing though is it seems we've figured out a very important guideline - which is to avoid sweat (and consequently dehydration) during pre-heating.