Waramanga's Julie Cornwell-Kelly has made history by injecting a highly concentrated subcutaneous immunoglobulin at home.

Now produced in Australia, the product is a life-changer for people whose white blood cells have stopped producing the antibodies they need to fight off common infections.

It is expected that up to 30 per cent of all patients with immune deficiencies, or between 130 and 150 Canberrans, will ultimately benefit from the process. Australia-wide the number will run into the thousands.

Mrs Cornwell-Kelly, who recently turned 50, was diagnosed with Common Variable Immunodeficiency (or CVID) 10 years ago.

Most people are diagnosed in the first two decades of their life and she is believed to have a late onset form of the condition.

''I got a cough that wouldn't go away,'' she said. ''I went to bed.

''On about the 10th day I dragged myself to the doctor. The doctor was a good one and ordered a full range of tests. The chest X-ray showed a shadow on the lung; this led to a blood test that came back abnormal.''

A diagnosis of CVID, with an associated risk of lymphoma, was made soon after.

''While I knew I didn't have it [lymphoma] I had to live with it in my head. It was hard to get my head around that and the IV stuff [the intravenous transfusion of large quantities of immunoglobulin].

''I had been working, temping, at Westpac. By the time the diagnosis came through the job had finished. That wasn't such a bad thing; I felt terrible. Each monthly treatment took four to eight hours and would knock me about for that day and the next. After a treatment I would be in bed with flu-like symptoms, headaches and just feeling lethargic.

''The symptoms were all related to the treatments; a month's worth of immunoglobulin being delivered in one go.''

After being diagnosed and starting treatment in Sydney, Mrs Cornwell-Kelly moved to Ballarat, Adelaide and Melbourne in quick succession with her engineer husband Paul.

The couple settled in Canberra in 2010 and The Canberra Hospital has been managing her condition since.

Before becoming ill Mrs Cornwell-Kelly, who has the unusual A-minus blood type, had been a blood donor for 20 years. She had made 49 individual donations before her illness meant she could no longer help in this way.

Subcutaneous immunoglobulin is a clear, colourless liquid extracted from donated blood using a fractional distillation process. It is produced by CSL (formerly the Commonwealth Serum Laboratory) and is distributed through the National Blood Authority of Australia, which is based in Canberra.

While the product has been widely used in Europe it has only just been cleared for distribution in Australia under a publicly-funded arrangement similar to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

It is significantly more concentrated than the immunoglobulin normally administered by IV.

Immunoglobulin is a concentrated dose of antibodies, the natural protein compounds produced by white blood cells to fight infections caused by viruses and bacteria.

Antibodies work in a range of different ways.

These range from masking the attacker so it can't identify the cells it was trying to attack, serving as a warning flag to alert other elements of the immune system to a threat or by recruiting another system of proteins that then drill into the attacking viruses or bacteria and destroy them.

Large quantities of donated blood are needed to extract even a relatively small amount of the concentrated immunoglobulin.

The final product is stored in glass vials and administered subcutaneously using a specially designed pump that is only 12cm long. The patient inserts a needle under the skin, usually in the abdomen, which is connected to the device which delivers a timed release by a tube.

Each treatment can take from one to three hours. Patients are able to watch TV, surf the internet or do anything else that does not involve moving around while the immunoglobulin passes into their system.

Because the overall dosage is much less than the month's worth delivered in one blow by the hospital-based IV process, side effects are minimal.

Instead of losing two or three days of her life each month, Mrs Cornwell-Kelly can now boost her immunological resistance to normal levels at a time and a place of her own choosing.

Dr Matthew Cook, the director of immunology at The Canberra Hospital, said the end result was that the condition had become as manageable, if not more so, than that of an insulin-dependent diabetic who monitored their own blood sugar levels as part of a normal daily routine.

Mrs Cornwell-Kelly agreed. She has urged anybody who could benefit from the treatment regime to give it a go - even if they do have misgivings about sticking a needle into their own flesh.

''It's not as bad as you think,'' she said.

''You get used to it.

''This does make a big difference to your quality of life. You feel so much better and you are not just shackled to a hospital.''

The National Blood Authority's Michael Stone said that since Canberra had begun trialling the substance with Mrs Cornwell-Kelly at home other hospitals around the country had become very interested.