Rituximab

Hi again Treesjm  and well done navigating across to this corner of the community.

As I said in your post in the New to Community area I don’t have Marginal Zone NHL…… but come the 19th if this month I will I have been on my Lymphoma journey for 26 years with 2 types of rare, hard to treat types of T-Cell NHL so although my Lymphoma ‘type’ is different I most definitely appreciate the challenges of this journey rather well.

Helicobacter Pylori is indeed one of the triggers that can lead to developing Lymphoma…… my HP kicked off during my main chemo between Dec 2013 and April 2014…… 

Ritixumab is targeted (biological) therapy (not chemotherapy) and is widely used as a treatment on it’s own or as part of various treatment regimes.

I had it as part of my 6 cycles of very aggressive R-EPOCH….. this had me in hospital for 6 days/5 nights on my 2 IV pumps 24/7 for over 120hrs each cycle and on the whole I had no real issues with my treatment and it did the job.

With ever drug the information will be daunting….. but more than often the reality is rather different.

Have you been told how long your Ritx infusion will last?

Ah thank you for replying ️

Looking back I had h pylori a while and just put it down to ibs or the dreaded menopause, it was only when my iron levels kept plummeting they thankfully referred me for a gastroscopy and thank god they did.

Omg the information sheet was scary, all sorts of reactions having it done very scary as I am a tad health anxious about procedures anyways like most is assume

I will be having it once a week for 4 weeks? 

Is this a normal time how is the first infusion is that the scary one xxx

If you look at the info sheets for normal run of the mill meds like Paracetamol, Ibuprofen you will see some interesting things but we don’t look at these.

Yes this sounds normal…… My Ritixumab was given at the same time as my chemo so my infusion was rather different…… so let’s look for any group member who had Ritixumab on its own to pick up on your post.

I actually have had a life long allergy to many drugs….. like Penicillin etc so before I got any drugs I was given IV antihistamines just in case of any reactions…… the only reaction was a slept a lot ;)

From what I have seen from other people’s experiences the first Ritixumab is given (as an outpatient) with the infusion running at a slow rate just to make sure there are on reactions so first day tends to longer than the others days.

Hi there

Sorry you are having to go thru this.

i had retuximab injections and was absolutely fine on them. At a later date they tried to give me it intravenously and I couldn’t tolerate it. It’s a very effective drug that’s used a lot but they know some cant tolerate it and they will feed it thru very slowly at first and keep a very close eye on you so please try not to worry. 
Good luck.

Ah thank you sook much for replying I'm a little scared, did you have an injection for the first one then? Why couldn't you tolerate the intravenous the reactions I've read scare me a little did you have any side effects? 

That's sooooo true paracetamol has some scary side effects but I've never had any of them ️ you have been so helpful thank you so much xxx

Hi again

• The injections were a keep it at bay type of treatment after I went in to remission. A few years later the cancer returned and they gave me chemo and ritux at the same time and I couldn’t tolerate it so they stopped it immediately. Honestly I promise you they know the signs to look for and will be keeping a very close eye on you. This was 8 years ago and I’m doing fine now. 
  Stay strong.