Here’s some more antibiotics
When college students are on their last packet of ramen and a desperate for a couple of bucks, one of their options to make a quick couple of bucks is donating their plasma. Excited about their quick payday, they don’t really think about what the person who receives their plasma.
Michelle Searle is a walking example of someone who benefits from plasma donors.
A senior at FGCU majoring in elementary education, Searle has primary immunodeficiency,
Diagnosed at age 11, Searle not only struggles with the absence of immunoglobulin G in her immune system, but she also struggles with the lack of knowledge that doctors have on autoimmune deficiencies.
“Today, even when I go to doctors, they’ve never heard of it,” Searle said. “When I go to the Wellness Center at FGCU, it’s not even in the system and they’re like, ‘Oh we don’t have that listed as an illness.’ I always have to teach and explain it to nurses and explain it to doctors.”
While Searle has a passion for education, Searle has extremely extensive knowledge about her immunodeficiency that allows her to inform others about her condition.
Before explaining her symptoms, which include migraines and fatigue, Searle gives each nurse or doctor the same spiel she has given time and time again.
“I say it’s a primary immune deficiency and basically my body doesn’t make enough antibodies to keep me healthy,” Searle said. “Usually in the medical field they understand when I mention antibodies. My IgG, which is a specific type of antibody, is the one I’m missing that makes me sick.”
Dr. Shahan Fatteh, Michelle’s physician at the Asthma, Allergy Center of Florida, says that the disease gets over-looked due to the number of antibiotics doctors prescribe when a patient is sick.
Searle’s primary physician of eight years, Fatteh specializes in all areas of Asthma and Allergy with a specific focus on Asthma, Chronic Sinusitis, Food Allergies, Eczema, and Immune Deficiencies.
“Because people jump on the antibiotics right away and get treated, then some of the more serious complications of the disease are not seen as quickly,” Fatteh said. “Patients these days when they take their children to doctor’s offices, they come in, they’re sick, they get antibiotics right away. Because antibiotics are provided so frequently by primary care physicians, they often are getting four, five or six rounds of antibiotics a year, feeling that they’re getting their health taken care of and not realizing that there may be more underlying issues.”
Because Searle’s immune deficiency makes her immune system weaker than most, the most common cold can put her in danger. Searle has adjusted her lifestyle to avoid contracting any type of infections.
“I can’t stay up super late multiple days in a row, I can’t do all-nighters because I get sick, but it’s really just little things,” Searle said.
While Searle knows others who from immune deficiencies who aren’t able to do simple things such as going to school, Searle has only had to adjust her diet and exercise.
In a person’s immune system, immunoglobulin G or IgG is an antibody helps the body fight off bacterial and viral infections.
Born with a lack of IgG, despite it not being discovered until she was 11 years old, Searle’s IgG levels were dangerously low.
“When I was first diagnosed, they show you your IgG levels and your IgG is between 800 and 1,200, and my IgG level was at 400,” Searle said.
In order to keep her IgG levels high, Searle infuses plasma. Plasma contains IgG antibodies that Searle lacks. Using the plasma from plasma donors to receive the IgG antibodies that her body can’t create on its own, she infuses it into her body multiple ways.
“With the infusion process, they usually start you with an IVIG which is through an IV through your arm and that last about six to seven hours,” Searle said. “You can go to a hospital or an infusion center but we had a nurse come to my house once a month and I would get my medicine which comes from plasma that people donate.
Using the plasma as her medicine, Searle would become super dehydrated from infusing so much plasma, and would often miss school for a couple of days.
Having to adjust to living on her own during her four years at FGCU, Searle uses an alternative way to do infusions herself.
“I do sub q, which is two butterfly needles in my thighs or my stomach and that last about two hours and I self-infuse with a pump so that way I don’t have to have a nurse come and I do it every two weeks,” Searle said. “With the sub q, my IgG levels are at 1,100 because I do it every two weeks. If you do it once a month like I did in the beginning, you can get sick because your levels are moving up and moving down and you can get sick more often than that.”
Evaluating the process of patients doing infusions every two weeks, Fatteh used Michelle’s experience in a clinical study to show the benefits of bi-weekly infusions to the Food and Drug Administration.
“I had patients like Michelle, who are teenagers and don’t have a lot of body fat, and I was trying to think about them getting infusions every week,” Fatteh said. “It’s a difficult challenge for patients not only to just do the infusions, but as well as having to do infusions every week. By switching to see if patients could do it every two weeks and seeing them stay healthy and away from infections, what it showed to the FDA was that these products can be safely given.”
Visiting the Care Center every four or five months, Searle goes through a routine checkup where Fatteh checks her blood work, her IgG levels and her lungs, before making sure that she doesn’t have any infections. If she begins to get sick more often, the amount of plasma she infuses might have to increase.
Combining her knowledge about immune deficiencies with the likes of experts, Searle teams up with the Immune Deficiency Foundation to help spread awareness about immune deficiencies.
“They do a walk for primary immune deficiencies and this past walk in November, was their third year having a walk in Fort Lauderdale,” Searle said. They do walks all over the country to spread awareness and educate people about immune deficiencies because it’s so rare and so many people live with it and they don’t realize. They’ve raised over a million dollars and they use the money to help patients pay with their insurance and copay because the medicine can be really expensive.”
While it’s important for Searle to serve as a walking example of what it’s like to live with an immune deficiency, Searle says she just wants everyone who has an immune deficiency that they’re not alone.
