Elevated Polyclonal IgA - MM or something else?

Hi everyone,

For about 3 years now, my wife has had elevated IgA levels - about 700-800 mg/dl (normal is about 80-350).   She has never registered an M-Spike, thus I think the correct term for these extra proteins would be "Polyclonal".   When this first showed up, she had a full skeletal survey and urinalysis, both of which were normal.

She has been seeing a Hemotologist every 6 months for these 3 years.  He said he wants to watch this to make sure it doesn't turn into MM.

However, we are starting to wonder if we should not be looking into anything else that could be causing this?  The reason I say this is because from what I've always read, MM cells produce Monocolonal protiens.  This makes me wonder if something else could be causing these elevated IgA levels?  I guess I'm just confused on why this Hemotologist is so focused on MM.

On the positive side, she has no syptoms of anything other than Rocacea on her face.  I personally have wondered if that could be causing the elevated IgA?

Hi - I have no idea whether what I'm saying is relevant but I've got rosacea and it arrived at about the same time as I was diagnosed with full-blown myeloma. That doesn't prove a connection however as I was also approaching menopause and some women get rosacea at that time. As for the polyclonal comment, an odd thing happened to me after my autologous stem cell transplant. I appeared to be in complete remission beforehand, and then three weeks after the transplant I got an M-spike of 3g/l. We use different units in Scotland. My haematologist was very disturbed by this and we waited for my spike to rise with great dread. It remained stable and then started going backwards to zero 8 months post transplant. Another haematologiat told me that on very rare occasions, some people get some poly-clonal cells after a transplant, but that it doesn't have to mean a proper recurrence of mm. No-one's been prepared to explain this to me more fully. Sorry I can't be of greater help to you. I've found a drug to reduce blood pressure, dixarit, quite helpful for the rasacea.

Best,

Eva

Great question and something I struggle with myself.  I also have an elevated IgA 285 (norman 32-156) and  K/L ratio is also whacked out .4 (range 1.3-2.7) but I have no monoclonal proteins. One difference from your case is that I do have Free Light Chains that are out of range.  

Wow, make my husband a third patient with the IGA and Lambda high numbers and lambda kappa ratio. For a long time he too had no M spike, but I think he does now. I'm interested to hear more about the announcement a few days ago that they have identified 3 genomes of mm patients. I think this means that we will be grouped by our results on the FISH test (genetic testing) and therapies will eventually be tailored to the type one falls into. When he had blood tests at Mayo, he let them take extra vials for this research. In the mean time, could we draw any conclusions from the similarities between three (or more) people on this blog?

I've been reading about Celiac Disease.I'm going to start on gluten free and see if that 1) lowers my IgA (now 951)  2) makes me feel better

I always struggled with IBS, so it is definitely worth a try. Maybe your wife should try also.