IVIG infusions

IVIG infusions make a world of difference for those of us who are having chronic infections.

2003 was a bad year for me following my second round of radiation. It seems like I was always getting sick and finally I wound up in the hospital with what they finally decided was pneumonia but I got the impression they really didn't know what it was. I responded to the antibiotics so they stuck the label "pneumonia" on it. Following this my doc ordered six months of IVIG infusions. I guess he just assumed my insurance would pay since this is a widely accepted treatments for MM patients. But after four months I started getting denial of benefit letters from the insurance company. So to make a long story short...  here I was staring at $50,000++ of medical expenses denied by my insurance company as "experimental". Of course, that was an excuse but they denied my written appeals and frantic phone calls.

It didn't help matters any that my doctor at the time didn't think it was his problem so wouldn't get involved. In the end, after Medicare paid some of it and the clinic wrote off some of it I paid about $3000 out of my pocket. We won't even begin to talk about how stressed out I was for weeks which probably cancelled out the benefit of doing the infusions.

Moral of the story.....be sure to get the finances straight BEFORE you start these. And regardless of what they tell you at the clinic, a good pre-med regimen is necessary, especially at the start. I had a terrible allergic reaction because the clinic failed to properly pre-med me and they tried to infuse me too quickly. Do the pre-meds and take it SLOW.