from Laurie - splenectomy info

March 16, 2005

Hi ,

I found three good articles I think, that I was able to download. I

will send them to you via email before I go home tonight (I am

here until 6:30 so should have time).

We were getting a really dense snowfall this morning on the way

to work - I think it was lake effect so it could go on to accumulate

alot or it can stop at a moments notice. I am not near windows

so I do not know which one it is. My thinking is that it stopped

without accumulating significantly. We really only had one good

(18 inches) snowfall this winter with a few little ones (1-6 inches)

but March has been unseasonably cold. At this time of year I am

ready for the snow to melt, the grass to green up, the tulips and

daffodils to bloom and the breeze to blow gently fresh gusts into

a stale house. But no luck so far and nothing promising on the

horizon. But it can change in an instant, so I am optimistic!

I am currently on one of my valleys in pain! not too bad the last

two days after being pretty awful for a few weeks. It seems to go

that way.....a couple of weeks of intense problems, followed by a

few days of not too bad. I just wish I knew why so I could optimize

the number of good days and reduce the bad ones. When it is

good like this, I question whether I even have a problem and if it

is really all in my head, or if the medicine is doing more harm

than good....then things go " south " (no insult intended )

I haven't run into any information about how to optimize your

health to prevent problems with post-splenectomy infections but

hopefully one of those attachments that I am sending will

address that issue or have a reference that we can access. I will

do a search on the primary care / internal medicine sites

tomorrow if I can, to see if they mention anything like this. There

was a perfect article for you, but it was before they put them

on-line so I couldn't download it. But as a guess, anything that

strengthens the bacterial attacking aspect of the immune system

should be the key (as well as limiting exposure to things that

weaken this part of the immune system). I read one statement

that said that viral immunity is not affected by loss of spleen - so

that is good!

I hope you are doing well too!

I will send that stuff soon.

Laurie

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