Michael R. Steckline wrote:
>
> Was wondering if anyone could please explain to me why one's blood count would
> decrease closer to the start time of a new chemotherapy treatment instead of
> right after. My mother had her fourth treatment two and a half weeks ago and
> only now has her blood count dropped as opposed to the week after. Any reasons
> why? Thanks
Dear Michael,
I am not a doctor, but can tell you from experience, that there are many
chemotherapy treatments that respond differently and are geared to make
the individual respond differently and every individual responds
differently, some more frequent or some less or some too much or some
not at all. This is a question you should ask your doctor from a
concerned caregiver standpoint but, I would believe not one of great
concern as your question is a very common as is the reaction to
treatment.
For instance, a chemotherapy such as Topotecan kills all blood cells
very rapidly after chemotherapy, thereby the necessity to administer a
white blood cell booster such as neuopogen to help build those cells
back up. Now another part of the immune system you must keep in mind.
All blood, red, white and platelets are generated from the bone marrow.
Depending on how many treatments one has received, or how low the immune
sytem is, depends on how fast the bone marrow responds to chemotherapy
treatments. In our case, the bone marrow responded very quickly after
the first treatments of chemo, but when the 41st treatment came the bone
marrow is very tired and responded very slowly thereby the necessity for
blood transfusions. So there are many variants to this , but your
quesiton is a typical one, and for the most part not one to be worried
about, but one to be concerned about and asked of you doctor. HOpe I am
making myself clear.
God Bless YOu
Marty auslander
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an automatically-generated notice. If you'd like to be removed
from the mailing list, please visit the Medicine-On-Line Discussion Forum
at <http://www.meds.com/con_faq.html>, or send an email message to:
majordomo@lists.meds.com
with the subject line blank and the body of the message containing the line:
unsubscribe mol-cancer your-email-address
where the phrase your-email-address is replaced with your actual email
address.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
