Tuesday, June 23, 2015

End of Cycle Two

Tuesday, June 16, 2015:

I have been on a trial of a new oral regimen for two months now, and I am a little disappointed to report that there is no significant change in my numbers.  My IgG dropped from 1230 to 1190 mg/dL this month, and M-Spike from 1.2 to 1.1 g/dL, but both of those values are well within their recent variability.  The good news is that the numbers didn't go up!

Dr L tells me that this particular treatment regimen may take a while before it has a significant beneficial effect - several cycles perhaps.  I'll wait I guess - not much else to do.

All of the other numbers are OK.  Platelets are 144 billion/L, slightly below the reference range of 150 - 450 billion/L, but apparently nothing to fret about, so I don't.  Neutrophils and the rest of the white cell counts are dandy, red cells are fine.

Of course we don't know anything about the lesion in vertebra T5.  We can only see it with a PET scan, and we don't do those very often because of cost and also because of radiation exposure.

Peripheral neuropathy is an issue.  My feet feel somewhat numb, a little more than before this new regimen, and they tingle a little, but so far no pain.  I am keeping them warm and busy in hopes of slowing the nerve damage that causes the neuropathy.

In the meantime I am physically quite active with walking, running, cycling, and lawn mowing, living a life of quality and trying to keep the DEX (part of the new regimen) from disassembling my muscles.