There are several different side effects of the Neupogen shot. Nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, mouth sores or ulcers, infection, bleeding, infertility or sterility, anemia, fatigue, cataracts, and organ complications such as heart, liver or lung failure. Two that I experienced almost right away were fatigue and diarrhea. Yep, I will admit it. I had diarrhea. Nothing seemed to really help it either. But I had it. Another side effect that a lot of people, if not everybody that gets this shot has, is bone pain. I am experiencing this right now. I thought it started this morning, but thinking back, it actually started last night when I was trying to go to sleep. I thought it was restless leg, but now I realize it was this bone pain. It's in the long bones, hips & sternum. What it feels like? It's a horribly painful throbbing pain throughout. It comes and goes but is always there. What's causing this throbbing bone pain? It's engrafting.
Don't mind the flabbiness, but this is something that can happen from the Neupogen shots
What is engrafting you may ask? It is when the new blood-forming cells start to grow and make healthy blood stem cells that show up in your blood. You will get pain from it because the new blood is forming fast and basically filling in your bone marrow. So, it will make your bones ache and hurt. Mainly the large bones like your legs, arms, sternum and especially in women, pelvic bone. It's a throbbing ache. Think, migraine headache, but in your bones. Anybody that has ever had a migraine (I used to get them all the time) will understand that feeling. It's the best way to describe this pain. According to a doctor, once my White Blood Count gets to 2.0, the pain should subside. Not go away, but be better tolerable. That will hopefully be tomorrow, but we really don't know. The engrafting will definitely happen after my transplant also. On the Be The Match webpage, they talk about the engrafting for after the transplant. If you want to see what they say, you can go to here...
https://bethematch.org/for-patients-and-families/getting-a-transplant/engraftment--days-0-30/
Labs from the last 4 days
On Wednesday this past week, May 11th, I started going in for daily labs in the morning. The reason for these labs is to see where I am with my white blood count. Dr. W told Eric and me that what we are looking for is for my white blood count to get to 3. He only told us the number. He didn't describe what it means. All we know is, we are waiting for the number to be at 3 before Stanford will call us to come in the next day to take my stem cells out. A process called Aphesis. Which I will talk about when it happens. On Wednesday, we got the results back and my white blood count was at 0.4. Almost zero. Thursday they went down more to 0.2 and Friday to 0.3. This morning we went in and I was feeling a lot better than I had been, minus the bone pain. I had my labs done and by about 12:30pm or so the results were in. My white blood count is now at 1.1. That's up almost a whole point. It makes me excited to see what it will be at tomorrow.
So, for now it's all just a waiting game. Waiting to for the next morning lab appointment. Waiting for the next results. Waiting for the call from Stanford. Waiting is tough, but I will do it. As I have said before, I will do it because it means I will be better soon.
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