I should
have started my tenth course of AZT 10 days ago but my Neutrophils insisted on
a trip to the basement, going down to .4 or so. All these results are plus or
minus a bit, but a graph shows the trend very well
At this
stage of the treatment they would want me on stable minimum of around 1.0
Well
today they have got up to .9 so that is near enough. (when I first had it the
treatment then .6 was OK - its the average over a period of months). So I had half the dose, so only one injection. I tried gentling ribbing some evening primrose oil over the spot and other other rashes I had - and it reduce the redness and itchiness a lot. (When I had done this before I waited for 12 hours before I did it - a paper I read said do i straight away)
The
consultant in Plymouth kindly rang the consultant in Kings, London - probably
to discuss both Roz and myself. Between them they have decided to carry on with
the 10 th course of AZT, but to halve the amount I get. This is probably
because you can get a toxic effect which forces your Neutrophils to go down
more than normal, which is a bit odd after 9 months of it. After that I will
get another bone marrow aspirate / biopsy so that they can have a good look at
the impact.
My last
bone marrow biopsy showed that blasts were normal and that the AZT was doing
its job. All very weird.
In 12
days I will then go back to Kings for a clinic and will discuss these strange
effects and see if their wider experience, when they did several years of
trials of AZT, can cast light on it.
At least
the AZT seems to work for me, mostly, and for a few of my fellow patients. On
the other hand, I also know one patient who could take the treatment and its
side effects, but it was not working. And another who kept being violently sick
so had to come off it again very quickly.
Roz seems to be doing fine and is working with a friend all day today doing some ceramics
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