Did my leukemia relapse ?
I was taking 6-mp chemo pills during the past 2 months 100mg each day monday to friday and 150mg each day friday to sunday + 32mg methotexrate each week + numerous of anti-biotics, i also had vincristine and inter methotexrate - that was 14 days ago. 8 days ago my neutrophil count went 0.00.etcc which is (considered neutropenia) since then my treatment was stopped and my neutrophil count is now 0.17 which still extremely low after 8 days off drugs even with 5 g-csf injections. my doctors are consider to perform a bone marrow test this monday to see weather i relapsed or not unless my neutrophil goes 0.5 on monday, as you can see now i am extremely worried. is it possible for my anc to reach 0.5 this monday or am i phucked to the point where i can plan my funeral ?
hey joe while i appreciate your wishes i came here for answer and not to hear any wishing what so ever
- Smokey Joe
Never give up. As a cancer survivor myself, positive thinking (even though its hard sometimes) is amazing during cancer treatment. I know this isn't the answer youy want to hear, and I know you are exremely worried. Try a google search of your counts and see if its possible to reach .5. Hope you get better and my thoughts are with you n this time of need.
- bingle duchaine
AMAZING! It maybe help. http://givingagift.info/7165/anti-biotics
- lala
I havent had your exact treatment, but my blood counts always took weeks to recover. I stayed neutropenic for weeks at a time when they said on avg patients were neutropenic for maybe one week. My hemaglobin was the next to stabalize, and my platelets took even longer.
I dont really know why, but it sucked being neutropenic for so long. And then if felt like as soon as things were close to normal, they wanted to bottom me out again.
Im not a doctor, so I cant say for sure. But there is hope. I get you dont want that, but the only other thing you have is to wait until 24 hours after the biopsy when they have the results. If the doctors who see you everyday cant say for sure, neither can we.
- Gina
Don't plan the funeral yet. I am a lymphoma patient not exactly the same as leukemia but similar. My treatments were delayed all the time because my wbc's and anc's where extremely low. wbc's 0.1 and absolute neutrophil count 160. It would take my body weeks to recover from 1 treatment, there were 2 times when I had to do the bone marrows to make sure my diease had not spread to my bone marrow. Maybe you are very sensitive to the treatment like I was. Good luck!
- TrueSnapdragon
Are you on maintenance therapy? It sounds like it with that med schedule. Is this your first time having chemo stopped? It's really not uncommon to have to take a chemo break for counts to come up. Even if your ANC doesn't come up by Monday and you have to have the bone marrow aspiration, it doesn't mean you've relapsed.
This may mean that you can't tolerate full doses of the 6MP or methotrexate. Some people never get full dose during maintenance- I know some people who have only been able to get 75% during all of maintenance, or bounce around between 50, 75, & 100%. Getting a smaller dose of your 6MP and/or methotrexate may allow your ANC to stay in a respectable range. This probably isn't related to your intrathecal methotrexate or your vincristine, but could be either the oral 6MP or oral methotrexate, or even the two together. This is not uncommon at all.
What are you taking as an antibiotic for PCP prophylaxis? Are you on Bactrim (Septra?) That's known to lower counts, and sometimes peolpe are changed from Bactrim to something that is not likely to lower counts, like Pentamadine (given IV or inhaled) or Mepron (oral.) The change is sometimes necessary when counts stay low for too long- changing the antibiotic may help your counts bounce back so you can get back on chemo.
Your doctor may want to do the bone marrow to be sure relapse isn't happening, but may suspect it's related to something else. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions, as it's far more likely to not be relapse. If it does turn out to be relapse, that is NOT a death sentence by any means. There are plenty of relapse treatment protocols.
Leukemia — Comprehensive overview covers symptoms, causes, risk factors, treatment of this blood-related cancer.
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