Saturday

Good Day All!

I had a CBC the other day and it was not, shall we say, sterling! Counts in the low 20's. My doc wants me to consider Rituxan or Spleenectomy. I pretty much flatly rejected both. I am not having any issues except low counts. I am running some again, working on my prednisone pounds. I feel fine.

Anyway, I am on the 2 week CBC routine again. If my counts drop below 20 I will have to consider something. I am not sure on the path.

Feel free to wade in here. Tough guy doesn't have a clue! LOL

Jeffrey

I think you need a spa day. Body massage, pedi, mani. Than go for a dip in the cold water! it is a cure all! hehehe

Hi Jeff,

If you end up having to treat you might consider the low dose rituxan. Many of us have had long remissions from Rituxan.

Julia's suggestions might work though

Hi Dru,

Please don't encourage Julia. She is really not quite right... If you know what I mean! I will probably consider Rituxan should I have to do something. I can get it on the weekends and keep my employer from noticing.

What were the side effects that you experience?

Jeffrey

I have had 3 rounds of rituxan. During the first infusion of each round i get bad chest pains, they slow down the infusion alot and ive had an ekg each time. It seems to be a bad stomach reaction, not a heart problem. During the next 3infusions each time I just breezed through. I do get some itchy throat and mouth but hydrocortisone helps. I get ranitadine, benedryl, hydrocortisone pretreatment.

Oh and I did have a Kindle malfunction during one of the infusions, but a nurse was able to fix it


Between the weekly infusions i was fine, could go to work and did not have any effects.

dru wrote: I have had 3 rounds of rituxan. During the first infusion of each round i get bad chest pains, they slow down the infusion alot and ive had an ekg each time. It seems to be a bad stomach reaction, not a heart problem. During the next 3infusions each time I just breezed through. I do get some itchy throat and mouth but hydrocortisone helps. I get ranitadine, benedryl, hydrocortisone pretreatment.

Oh and I did have a Kindle malfunction during one of the infusions, but a nurse was able to fix it


Between the weekly infusions i was fine, could go to work and did not have any effects.

Thanks Dru!

I did the rituxan my first infusion I had a reaction but the next 3 were no big deal. Worse side effects were feeling run down for a day.

Jeffrey - You promised you'd keep it a secret that I wasn't quite right! I'm telling on you!

Winnifred wrote: I did the rituxan my first infusion I had a reaction but the next 3 were no big deal. Worse side effects were feeling run down for a day.

Jeffrey - You promised you'd keep it a secret that I wasn't quite right! I'm telling on you!

Julia,

You are a dear friend, but only a friend would tell you, you are NOT quite "right".

I had an interesting side effect of Rituxin, water tasted delicious! Especially ice water, so refreshing and satisfying. Rituxin brought my counts up just a bit, to about 25K for 6mos. Then after 6mos the counts went down and water tasted like plain old water again.

Jeffrey,

I had Rituxin back in March of 2012. It was quite uneventful.

No side effects at all. Platelets have been fine ever since.

Jeffrey,

I just sent you an email!

Jeffery, I had 2 rounds of Rituxan in 2010 with zero side affects. My counts went from almost 0 to 140k and holding for 2 years. I had another 4 rounds in 2012 again with zero side affects and my counts went from under 5k back to over 140k and still holding.

Hey I have had a similar experience as you. I would recommend to try Rituxan before you even think of spleenectomy. Atleast with Rituxan there is a 60% success chance, mostly no side effects and once you are done with the treatment, you can do a detox. Whereas, spleenectomy is permanent and does not show 100% success.

I have been diagnosed with adult secondary ITP for a year now and my count kept dropping under 20k even after a severe blah prednisone treatment. I haven't had any bleeding symptoms in the past year. And I feel great. It's just everytime I get a CBC I get a panic value result for platelets. So reluctantly I agreed to Rituxan treatment. I recently had my 4 week Rituxan treatment which went very smoothly. It's been 5 weeks since my treatment ended. My platelets actually dropped to 16k during the treatment and 18k 4 weeks after the treatment. But, this week suddenly my count is above 100K. I am not sure if this is Rituxan's magic or just my platelets being in a good mood. So I'd say far I am having a good experience with Rituxan. Hope this helps you.

Hey Jeffrey stop working and give us an update!