changing peg-intron shot day

[hiya24]

I am interested in moving my peg-intron shot night from Friday  to Sunday now that my kiddos will be back in school.  My doc recommended doing it over a couple of weeks (i.e. go to saturday one week and then sunday the next).  This sounds reasonable to me but just wanted to see if you guys have been any experience with doing this or have any advice.  I guess my biggest concern is that I don't want to risk my peg levels getting too low.

Many thanks. Anna

[fresnoborn]

Thanks a whole bunch. I totally understand now. Thanks for the info. For a minute there, I thought I was doing it all wrong. See ya!

[hiya24]

Peg interferon should be taken every 7 days during combo therapy.  Moving the shot date back a day would mean that there are 8 days in between two of the shots whereas moving it forward would make it 6 days in between two of the shots.  This is only specific for the two shots in reference NOT the entire treatment. The potential risk that some are refering to here is that the amount of the drug in your blood will be decreased more than usual for that one week while the change is being made.  I am not certain whether or not this would potentially compromise chances of SVR since it is a one time thing but there seems to be some data available to show that Peg Intron concentrations in the blood drops after 5-6 days whereas Pegasys does not. The risk is that there could be a weakness in the treatment and the achieving SVR might be compromised. Hope this helps.

[fresnoborn]

thanks, scott. soooo.....I take my peg-intron shot every sunday nite about 9:00. If my shot wears out about every 5 days then I should move it forward to monday nite and then take it again when? the next saturday nite? then again, in 5 days, on thursday nite?

[hiya24]

If you wouldn't mind including the bookmark for the serum conc levels I would really appreciate it.

Do you know why PegIntron drops more rapidly than Pegasys? Is it related to the fact that the Pegasys is a fixed dose not weight specific.

[fresnoborn]

I don't mean to be ignorant,BUT, I don't understand what you are saying. What I'm asking is, what do you mean when you say "every 8 days" "every 9 days"? Am I supposed to be taking my shot every 5th day? How do you come up with saying that someone would be waiting 8 days to take their next shot. please, someone explain this to me.

[Christie2004]

Though it's anecdotal, my husband changed is shot day when he was on Peg a couple different times during that year.  He even skipped one week when he was overseas.

His doc said no big deal.  Just added on an extra week or two at the end.  He's been SVR for 3 years now.