Hi Marty, Thanks for this report. I have been off gleevec for 4 years in May of this year. Two and half years on it, (dx'd Feb. 2005) and got off when a brain bleed occurred. Now my docs say it was not caused by gleevec, but I have my doubts. I had a somewhat severe stroke last April without being on gleevec. I am still in cellular remission at this point. I have developed diabetes, (not related to the CML) so this stem cell news is something to consider. Thanks for the insight and sharing. Blessings, Susan (Indiana)
-----Original Message----- From: Martin Gartenberg <wa2...@gmail.com> To: cmlhope <cmlhope@googlegroups.com> Sent: Thu, Mar 17, 2011 8:08 pm Subject: Re: [CMLHope] Kidney function Hi "V" I am not on Gleevec or any other drug because I had a bone marrow transplant 22 years ago this May. Since I had total body radiation and loads of chemo I became diabetic, and have had problems with my kidneys with rising Creatnine as well as my BUN levels over the years. I was in stage four failure and was starting to look into a kidney transplant because I didn't want to go through the riggers of Dialysis, and now that I am a chimera (meaning that ever since my bone marrow transplant my blood type has changed from O+ to B+ which was my donors blood type) and my organs still remain O+. Since a solid organ transplant must be the same as their blood type this would put me into a very unusual position because my blood is now type (B+ and my organs are still O+) . I then decided to try something new, it was stem cell therapy and after six and a half weeks I have been cured of my Diabetes, however my kidney problems are still there but I did notice that from my last two blood tests the Creatnine has dropped from 4.2 to 3,4 and my BUN level has also dropped from 65 to 55 in the last two weeks. The stem cell doctor told me that if the stem sell therapy was going to work then it may take about six months to see. So far I have been out of therapy for about two and a half months. However he did mention that what would happen first would be my Diabetes would get better, and it did. I no longer require any more insulin, so at least that part of it worked. I just saw my kidney doctor and he said that my kidney function has dropped from stage four failure to now being stage three failure. He was honest with me (my stem cell doctor) up front before I started this stem cell treatments by telling me that he has never done this before for kidney failure but has done it many times for Diabetes, and in a lot of cases if also had improved kidney function but there were no guarantees that it would work on me. This is because the damage to my kidneys was done by both the radiation and chemotherapy where the other patients damage was done by all of the drugs including steroids to try and keep their blood glucose in control. So, I guess that I will have to wait and see what happens... So you can see whether your on Gleevec or any other drug that is meant to help with CML there are always some "nastiness" that comes along with it. This especially goes for bone marrow transplantation. The bottom line here is that we all are still alive to do battle with whatever we have. I wish you the best of luck, and remember what I said about being alive, because every day that you are alive is a good day. My father once taught me many years ago, almost 22 to be exact, that every day is a good day unless someone close to you dies. At that time I was living in a small plastic bubble in a hospital for seven months. What he said just made me fight harder, and he was correct. GOD bless, and 18's Marty On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 9:37 AM, Victoria Reiter <vkrei...@gmail.com> wrote: Has anyone found that their creatnine levels have risen while taking Gleevec? I know this occurs when one's blood pressure goes up for any length of time but I'm talking about having normal blood pressure yet creatinine levels rising. VReiter -- [CMLHope] A support group of http://cmlhope.com ------------------------------------------------- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CMLHope" group. To post to this group, send email to CMLHope@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cmlhope-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CMLHope -- [CMLHope] A support group of http://cmlhope.com ------------------------------------------------- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CMLHope" group. To post to this group, send email to CMLHope@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cmlhope-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CMLHope -- [CMLHope] A support group of http://cmlhope.com ------------------------------------------------- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CMLHope" group. To post to this group, send email to CMLHope@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cmlhope-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CMLHope
