Antiserum made from blood products can prevent infections, but can also cause serum sickness, an inflammatory response to the body’s misperception that it’s fighting something harmful. Symptoms include itching, rashes, and hives, and can be treated with steroids and anti-inflammatory drugs. Re-exposure to the antiserum can cause life-threatening reactions.
Sometimes doctors use serum, a blood product, from people or animals to make drugs that can help prevent serious infections. This is called an antiserum and boosts the immune response or prevents infection from certain diseases. Some basic immunizations are done with antiserum, such as tetanus vaccinations.
While rare, people will occasionally have an almost “allergic” response to injections with a specific antiserum. What happens is that the body misinterprets it and starts seeing the proteins in the whey as foreign and harmful, and then starts attacking them. What happens next is serum sickness, or an inflammatory response to the body’s misperception that it’s fighting something harmful. The disease can also sometimes result from blood transfusions or the use of other blood products such as platelet transfusions.
Serum sickness can occur one week to three weeks after receiving an injection with an antiserum, although it sometimes occurs more rapidly. The common symptoms of this condition are bothersome, including itching, rashes, and hives. Most people will also have fever and aches, and may have very swollen lymph nodes that hurt when touched. In laboratory tests of urine, blood and high levels of protein can be detected, which can confirm the presence of this disease.
Although symptoms are not typically long-lasting, people may need help recovering from serum sickness by taking oral steroids or, at a minimum, using topical steroids to help reduce the rash, hives, and the itch. Doctors might also prescribe medications to reduce swelling, such as ibuprofen or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Even if the symptoms seem mild and do not require medication, patients should still notify their doctors that they have developed this condition, as what happens next is extremely important.
Once a person has had serum sickness with a particular antiserum, they are at grave risk of life-threatening reactions if they use the antiserum again. These reactions include severe swelling of blood vessels and extremities and risk of an anaphylactic shock reaction. People should never use an antiserum that has previously caused serum sickness because this risk is so high, and if they even remotely suspect the disease after having an injection of the antiserum, they should definitely notify their physician and any other physicians who may treat them in the future.
There’s no way to tell who is at risk for serum sickness, and it’s not a condition that can be avoided. Either it happens or it doesn’t. It is often thought to be very similar to the allergic reactions people have to antibiotics such as penicillin, as they risk similar risks when re-exposure occurs.
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