4 replies to this topic

[Deodara]

Being on Glivec and after Tasigna, I have hypoplasia ¿Has somebody found a supplement for this problem?

[Trey]

You mean low blood counts, I presume?  If so, then not really.  But it is a good idea to take a good multi and extra C.  After that extra folic acid and Vit D are also a good idea.

[Deodara]

Thank you for your answer Trey. Neutropenia is the biggest problem now, cause low rbc counts are not so difficult and risky. I'm already taking all kind of vitamins, but I think it must be homeopathic or phytoterapy tretments for neutropenia, in fact I tried an efficient one, but I needed to stop due to another problems. ¿Somebody who knows a treatment or an specialized naturopath to ask?

[scuba]

Deodara,

Dr. Cortes at M.D. Anderson explained (and I am sure Trey will add) - low WBC's on initial treatment with TKI's are generally the result of your bone marrow not having been making 'normal' cells, but instead have been making Leukemic ones.  You have a population of bad Neutrophil making cells.  After starting a TKI - that population starts to get wiped out (good thing), but you still have leukemic stem cells wanting to make leukemic offspring which in turn get hit again by the TKI.  The body thinks its making Neutrophils.   Over time, Neutropenia sets in and can be severe.  In my case my ANC was as low as 0.1.  Very bad.

Depending on when you were diagnosed - your body has had a long time to grow a population of leumemic cells and not normal ones.  Now that the bone marrow is being cleaned up of Leukemia - the body starts to re-grow normal cells.  It takes time because your stem cells are mostly leukemic ones.  But there are certainly some normal cells.  It can be one or two years depending on the starting population to recover.

The key is to keep the population of leukemic cells depressed so the body can re-populate normal cells.  It's a race between good cells and bad cells.

In my case - I have been taken off all TKI's in order to let the body recover.  No doubt the recovery of Neutrophils are both good and bad (Leukemia re-growing too).  But then I went back on a TKI and this time my starting population of good cells was higher so my Neutropenia was less.  So much less that I am able to stay on the drug now.  Dr. Cortes preferred this "pulse" strategy of on-again/off-again approach in order to keep pressure on the Leukemia (create room in the marrow) while my normal system re-populated.  He preferred this over Neutrophil stimulation.

Trey - anything you want to add to this?

[Deodara]

Thank you for shearing the Dr. Cortes strategy, it seems very useful