One cold after the next

Time for another blog update!  (I seem to start every entry with that)  I’ve been seeing Dr. Chen now for three months, and have had the Darzalex and Vitamin C infusions (25g) three times, to continue the maintenance.  It seems to be going pretty well in that my numbers are excellent and the m-spike remains at 0.1. 

Except . . . the immunoglobulins are low.  They have been consistently low for quite a long while and this can be the result of the myeloma itself, apparently, or it could be because of the Darzalex.  Despite lots of reading, I can never seem to wrap my head around how the immune system works.  It’s so complicated.  But the IgGs are now very low, and it means a much greater susceptibility to infections.  Apparently, they do not tend to rise back up on their own, even though myeloma is now gone.

I have had one sore throat/cough/cold after another since January, four in all.  This is very concerning to me, as I just can’t seem to shake it.  As soon as it goes away, in a few weeks it’s back again.  Despite my white blood cell and red blood cells counts being in normal range.  I guess these immunoglobulins are all important.

I went to consult with Dr. Gignac this week, the naturopath who works with Dr. Chen.  He had some suggestions of things to take to shore up my immune system and get rid of the persistent upper respiratory infections:

• A new version of the mushroom supplement AHCC, Immunokinoko, which he said is hands-down the most effective of all mushrooms against bacterial AND viral infections.  So even though it’s expensive, I have a six week course of that;
• A new version of curcumin, called Tetracurcumin, developed by the man who does Thorne Research supplements, 39x more bioavailable than the other types;
• and Vitamin C, three times a day.  That’s an easy one.  I thought because I was having 25g along with the infusion that would be sufficient, but Gignac said it clears out of your system after about four hours, so is required throughout the day.

Let’s see if this all does the job and my immune system can rise to the occasion and I can manage to stay healthy for awhile here.  If not, I will probably have to have a monthly infusion of immunoglobulins, and I don’t relish that idea one bit.  But it may be necessary, we shall see, fingers crossed.  This is the last piece of the puzzle for getting healthy, all my other numbers look pretty good right now.  Will report back, of course.  Thanks for reading.