I Hate Neupogen

I had 96 hours of CDEP chemo in the hospital last week and began taking Neupogen shots when I returned home last Saturday.  Thursday evening I began to have terrible pain in my lower back and pelvis area, so much that I feared I had had another compression fracture.  However, the pain was not accompanied by any loss of movement and didn't get better or worse with activity.  I was unable to sleep at all.  I went to the oncologist yesterday and he said it was the side effects from the neupogen.  He upgraded my pain pills.  I am not crazy about taking pain pills.  Because my MM was diagnosed as stage 3 the doctors at the cancer center wanted to do the stem cell transplant before kyphoplasty, so I deal with spinal pain anyway.  But with the Neupogen it is much worse.

 The good news is that after three rounds of triple therapy -- Velcade, Revlimid and Decadron-- I had a complete response.  The bone marrow biopsy showed no signs of multiple myeloma.  I have been in remission since June.  This is pretty remarkable given that I had over 90% of my bone marrow made up of malignant plasma cells.  I have IgD non-secretory multiple myeloma which, I am told, is extremely rare.  Consequently, there are no proteins detectable in a blood test.  Monthly bone marrow aspirations are the only way my disease can be monitored.

From Anna,

Hi RevMatt, Sorry you had Problems with Neupogen.  Its been a couple of years since Dad did those shots.  They stopped helping him so the Dr. stopped them.  Great to hear about the remission.

Your friend,

Anna

Good Evening RevMatt;

The good news is that after three rounds of triple therapy -- Velcade, Revlimid and Decadron-- I had a complete response.  The bone marrow biopsy showed no signs of multiple myeloma.  I have been in remission since June. 

I'm no doctor (thank God) but why rush into a SCT if the meds are holding the beast at bay? Keep taking the meds you're on until they lose their efficacy and then consider a transplant.  

This is pretty remarkable.

Yes it is! Congratulations! Keep doing what is working. 

Monthly bone marrow aspirations are the only way my disease can be monitored.

How many of these have you gone through?

Take care;

Kevin