Fevers & Stage 4

Hey I was 38 when I had a low grade fever for the entire summer, went to dr after Dr -blood work, spinal tap all the stuff. Before this never in the hospital for anything, rarely sick. They gave me a bunch of roids and felt better for a little bit-then found Mel -I'm only stage 3b but the onc at mayo theorized either my sickness might have brought down my immune system and woke up Mel or it was Mel causing my fever/no way to tell. I'm Ned for 5 yrs now

I can't speak to fevers before diagnosis, but fevers as a side effect of Ipi/Nivo is something I have experienced. Had a 3 week fever in January after my 4th Ipi/Nivo infusion. My liver enzymes were high and pacreas was inflammed and a ton of lymph nodes were reacting. Basically my whole body was super amped up from my immune system reacting to the drugs. So, I would theorize that perhaps having fevers before diagnosis could be a good thing, since it's an indication of your immune system reacting, and maybe it was trying to kill off some cancer cells. Either way, I would look at fevers as a good sign.. a sign that the immune system is reacting to the treatment positively, which is what happened in my case.

I had fevers during and after my clinical trial at NIH and at the beginning of my "Year of Keytruda"…always in the evening.  Before I was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, I had a couple of episodes of chills, fever, body aches, etc.  At the time I was a second grade teacher and attributed it to something I caught from the children in my class.  However, after my diagnosis I wondered about those fevers because I taught for many years and was rarely sick with anything other than a cold although I went to the doctor a few times about the body aches. 

Best wishes to you!

Terrie

My husband ran a low-grade fever and had chills and aches while on Interferon treatment, usually just the night of the shot. He is now is on ipo plus nivo infusions (he's had 2 out of 4 and then will move to maintenance) and he consistently runs a low-grade fever in the evenings. However, he had no issues with fever before he was diagnosed with Nevoid Malignant Melanoma. He does seem to be responding. We won't know anything for sure until the 12 week scans, but the tumor on his jawline in the parotid gland has shrunk and become soft rather than hard (after initially growing following infusion number 1). Everyone's experiences are different, but I hope this will be helpful. Keep up the good fight!