Hi everyone. Haven’t been on this site for quite some time. I don’t know where this year has gone!. I had thought it would be a good year for mum as her Para Protein levels had dropped to 7 last year and she came off all treatment, however as mum has so many other health issues, osteo arthritis, breast cancer, heart failure, renal failure stage 4, cervical spondylosis in neck, this year seems to have just been going out to see doctors and hospitals and mum hasn’t felt inclined to go out anywhere else. August was a run of hospital visits with high BP, palpitations etc., She was put on beta blockers but they made her breathing really bad so she had to come off them. Anyway because of all mum’s other problems we hadn’t been thinking about the Myeloma too much but unfortunately on our last visit her pp levels had gone up again. The Consultant said she can’t go back on the Cyclo as her kidneys are too bad. He has suggested Velcade or perhaps Thalidomide but I am worried about their side effects one of which is Peripheral Neuropathy (I think I am right in saying that). Because mum already has a lot of pain with her arthritis I’m not sure how well she would cope with more pain. I would be grateful for any feedback from anyone taking Velcade, good or bad, and if there are better alternatives. I had read that side effects were not so bad if injected under the skin rather than into a vein?? Because mum is 88 and she has these other health problems I know the Consultant is wary of giving her too much other medication especially as everything seems to affect her Creatinine level of her kidneys which at the moment is really high. When mum first started her treatment last year, she was just started on Cyclo which didn’t control the PP levels at all. The DEX was added and this really started to bring the levels down. She eventually had to come off the Cyclo because of her kidney reading, but continuing with just the steroids seemed to work for her although she did put on a couple of stone. I am worried now about going on too much steroid as she also now has Osteopenia due to the steroids last year (she was fine before that). She recently had a fracture in her T8 vertebrae which they thought might be due to the Myeloma but thankfully wasn’t, so I guess just the Osteo Arthritis and thin bones. This was good news of course. The trouble is if mum just goes on DEX now without anything else, I’m not sure if this would be enough to bring down her PP levels sufficiently. I know there aren’t many elderly people like mum on this site, but I would appreciate any advice or feedback on anyone else in mum’s situation.
Kind regards to you all.
Sandie