How We Treat Autoimmune Small Fiber Polyneuropathy with Immunoglobulin Therapy

Abstract

Intravenous immunoglobulin therapy is FDA approved for the immune-mediated peripheral nerve disorders Guillain-Barre syndrome, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, and multifocal motor neuropathy. Immunoglobulin therapy has been used increasingly with significant efficacy in the treatment of patients with disabling autoimmune forms of dysautonomia, which are most often small fiber (autonomic and/or sensory) polyneuropathies. It is recognized by most who treat these disorders, however, that patients with autonomic dysfunction treated with intravenous immunoglobulin therapy develop aseptic meningitis or severe lingering headache more frequently than other patient populations when this therapy is dosed in the traditional fashion. We discuss our combined 27 years of experience with the use of immunoglobulin and other immune modulatory therapy in patients with autoimmune small fiber polyneuropathy.

Keywords: Autoimmune; Dysautonomia; Intravenous immunoglobulin; Postural tachycardia syndrome; Small fiber neuropathy; Subcutaneous immunoglobulin; autonomic neuropathy.