for Lottie

[Guest guest]

The word remission has a nice ring to it, and the fact that it evades me no

longer bothers me. If I can live 13 years without it, then maybe I didn't need

it in the first place.

_______________________

Hi Lottie, my friend,

Time for a little attitude correction. You ARE in a remission of sorts. Even if

you are 100% ph+, if your white cell count is not increasing, you are in a

hematological remission (or response). Your disease is being controlled by

whatever cml drug you are taking....otherwise your white count would be

climbing, which is it now (but did in the beginning when your disease was not

controlled).

Also, when people first went on Gleevec, I asked Dr. Druker how they would know

that the drug was preventing the progression of the disease (through the various

stages) and he said " we won't really know for 5 years until we see what the

death rate is of people on Gleevec. " At 5 years they expect a certain (fairly

large) % of people with cml to have died but because that is not happening, they

know that the progression of the disease is being halted by the drug (ie that

the drug is working). You are there, my friend!

The problem with having more cml cells (a higher % that are ph+) is simply that

you have more cml cells that could mutate and be harder to treat.....but the

longer time that goes without this happening (per Dr. Druker) the less likely

that is to happen. So, your cml cells are probably more stable or reliable than

someone who is newly diagnosed (when the nature of their cml is not known).

And, here is where a great diet with lots of anti-oxidants is good for

you....mop up those free radicals so that they can't do more DNA damage to your

cml cells.

So, my opinion is that you can say that your disease is in remission (it is not

progressing, your white count is not climbing) because of your drug. Even being

100% ph+ as long as stable is a good thing.

your cml buddy....Maui Nanc