Chrissy & Terry: It amazes me when I hear of those who have been on Gleevec and couldn't eat or lost so much weight. I had just the opposite to happen to me. Before being dxed my husband & I had started out doing the Atkin's diet early in 2003. I lost thirty pounds and he lost over fifty.......never felt better in our lives. He stayed as strict as ever on it while I began to implement more nutritious foods to my diet. In the fall of that year I began to notice that I kept losing weight no matter what I was eating and at first I was thrilled, but then I begin to worry that something was not right. I had no other symptoms other than my "bones & joints" hurt a lot, especially when I would go to bed. It felt like I had bad shin splints in my lower legs. I just thought it was "old" age setting in as I had turned fifty. I never told anyone about the weight loss........was just enjoying being "small" once again. Our son met his future wife that fall and she went with us down to Florida to be with my Mom & Step-dad for Christmas along with both of my brothers. It was the last Christmas for my Stepfather and we were all together. The morning we got up to leave and come back to Missouri, I woke up with a terrible, terrible sinus head cold. It stayed on for two weeks and I coughed and coughed (like now, :-) ) and then about mid Jan. of 2004, I began to have this sharp pain under my lower rib cage on the left side. It was constant and several of my friends and I decided that maybe it was pluercy (sp.?), but after the second week I remember laying on the bed crying it hurt so bad. Decided to go to my doctor the next morning as a walk in patient. He thought I had a bad case of Diversticulitis and sent me home with two strong anti-biotics and told me to come back in a week. I did, and he said he was a little concerned as he could still feel a hard mass when he pressed on my side (of course I still had the pain, too) and set me up for a second opinion the next day. I went and he wanted to do some tests of which the first was a simple CBC. The other was a cat scan of which I had to drink all this horrible stuff before hand. That evening that doctor called me and scared the living daylights out of me by saying something like you have something really bad and I can't help you. Your white cell count is off the page and we're sending it out for another lab to count. He still wanted me to go ahead with the cat scan of which once I got to the department, he changed the test and the did a full upper catscan with i.v. (I wasn't prepared for that and almost went into hyperventilation because of my fear needles, but just prayed alot and God helped me through it). Two Days later my regular doctor called and informed me of the CML (white cell count was around 200,000 and spleen tripled in size) was very informative and told me that it was a form of Leukemia that could be controlled with medication and he had patients who had lived for many years. He set me up with a onc/hema doctor and that began my long journey. It took about another three or four weeks before I was able to be put on the Gleevec. My first few months, I did have bad nausea & diarreah as well as other side affects. But, my appetite wasn't bothered, in fact I noticed eating bananas and drinking chocolate milk seemed to be a "craving" like when one is pregnant. (smile) I did begin to notice the weight began to start up again gradually within about a month. Before that, I probably had lost a total of fifty to fifty-five pounds and I'm only five foot tall. I see pictures of myself back then and I did look ill. I remember my girlfriend telling me about three months before being dxed that I could stop the weight loss now as I was beginning to look sick, but I didn't believe her. I recently began to sort of watch what I'm eating and found that taking the Gleevec with just a snack works great for me instead of eating a full meal. I've dropped around ten pounds. I would like to take off about twenty to twenty-five more and stay at that weight.........I know I would feel much better. The side affects I've had from the Gleevec are mild now compared to how they were in the beginning. I still have a little swelling around the eyes (especially the right one for some reason) each morning, but is gone pretty much by mid day. Once in a while I get an occasional bout of mild nausea. I still have a problem with diarreah, but manage. I don't have too much pain any longer all though I still get occasional muscle cramps (calf muscle, foot, & hand cramps). I've learned to live with them and just make do the best I can. For those of you starting out, you will learn by trial & error what works best for you.
God Bless You All, Keep Looking Up, Sheila W. (suizeq) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ [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 [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CMLHope -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
