White Blood Cells

My mom is currently being treated with FOLFOX with avastin for colon cancer that has spread to her urniary tract tube. She has had 3 treatments, but has had to stop because her white cell count is too low. They say there is nothing you can do to boost these cells, but I wanted to know has anyone been through this? Is there really nothing we can do to get this count up so she can continue her treatment.

Neupogen and neulasta both stimulate white cell production. You should ask the doctor if these are not available due to her specific illness, as I used them both when undergoing chemo and they worked quite well. Neulasta is much kinder on the patient, as you only need a single shot to stimulate the bone marrow.

Dear Constance,
Thank you for the information. I found both of these drugs during my reading yesterday. Her doctor said she could not get Nuelasta, but Neupogen is possible. Unfortunately, they have not been giving it to her as a preventitive measure and now they have to wait for her body to build itself up.

Did you recieve it after each treatment from the start or did you get it when they went too low?

It is a shot? Is it painful?

Dear Brenda:
I had colon cancer chemo for my duodenal adenocarcinoma and they gave me Nuelasta AFTER my white blood cell count went down, to bring it back up. (They would test my white blood cell count before each chemo treatment.) It is not very painful at all, and it worked very well. I only had to have the one shot during 4 months of chemo. Good luck!

Janet

My husband is taking chemotheraphy and his white blood cells dropped critically low. He ran a fever and we had to hospitalize him. They began giving him neutropen by injection while he was in the hospital, and they continued to give them to him at the cancer center when he came home. We went everyday except on the weekends for at least 10 injections. The Neulasta in a one time injection that they usually give him the day after the chemo. The Neutropen is a daily injection for ten (10) or more days. Check with someone about this, because I know my husband's white blood cell count was very low when they gave him the Neutropen.