Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Multiple Myeloma a Rarer Cancer.

I love posting pictures with my blog. I find it soothing. I take many of these pictures myself. This is a large pond near our home and the "baby" Geese came out at sunset to swim. Today they tried to fly..in a few days they will be gone. Life is like that, try new things, learn, take notice for tomorrow the things we have today may be gone.




Multiple Myeloma is still an "incurable" cancer. Yes the experts tell us so. Do we have to believe them no. We should do all we can to learn how to heal ourselves as we know our bodies best. Yes sometimes we have insurmountable odds, Like our dear friend Carlos, but he put up a valiant fight to the end. Go out fighting. My friend Phil has started a Dominate campaign. He is a young 30 year old with Multiple Myeloma, which from now on I will refer to as MM. Not much is said or written on this cancer versus 99% of other cancers. Phil has started a foundation www.cancerkicker.org and is accepting donations or selling bracelets and t-shirts to help fight this disease.
Multiple Myeloma is one of a family of diseases known as Plasma Cell Dyscrasias or abnormalities in the blood. Myeloma is a cancer of the white blood cells or plasma cells.
These plasma cells are a very important part of the immune system, which in turns helps the body fight and overcome infections caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi. These Plasma cells are found mainly in the Bone Marrow and develop from white blood cells called B-Lymphocytes. When bugs invade the system, B-Lymphocytes are the army the body sends out as plasma cells which form the antibodies and stop the invasion of disease. Normally plasma cells are only formed on the occasional scenario to fight infection. Example if you have the flu then the B-Lymphocytes say hey get me some plasma cells and kill of this sucker. Once the task is complete, and the infection gone, the plasma cells die off.
Under normal conditions the body keeps on working this way to keep it healthy. Multiple Myeloma begins, when certain genetic mutations occur causing plasma cells to become abnormal. These Cells continue to divide in this abnormal fashion and overwhelm the body with too many plasma cells, and this eventually will form a tumor. I will speak later on the different types etc.
These cells are called myeloma cells which are now cancer cells which produce an antibody called M proteins. This can break down to different forms of myeloma but here we will go with the general description. These M proteins can usually, but not always, be detected in the blood or urine by a special test called protein electrophoresis and immunofixation.
The reason for so much bone pain and disintegration is that the plasma cells originate from the bone marrow from those out of control plasma cells, they now become myeloma cells and produce tumors that usually develop in the bone. Thus the name multiple myeloma.
I will list some of the stats for MM but from my experience I think these are changing. I just talk to hundreds of infected people and the age is getting younger and more woman are turning up with MM.
MM reflects about 1% of all cancers, however it accounts for 10% of blood cancers. Supposed to be 4.3 cases per 100,000. Approximately 15,000 new cases of MM per year appear. Occurs more in men than in women and is twice as high in African American Men (I would like to see this as I have yet to meet AM people, so if you are AM AND have MM please let me know, I would be curious to see why we are not hearing from you.)
Rarely in Asian men. The age is supposed to be a mean of 66. Lately I have known at least 20-30 young men 28-50's coming down with this disease and probably a lot more. I wonder when they update these stats. Suppose to be rare in anyone younger than 40 so either I met all the rare ones or it is taking hold of our young men. Do I do research, No, but I speak with dozens of afflicted people.
As usual they are at odds to the cause. They whoever "they are" say that exposure to chemicals is a rare factor. Wonder who covered their A...on this one. rare occurrence in the nuclear industry, sheet metal, herbicides and fertilizers , SST, other possibles Hair dye, formaldehyde, spray paint asbestos. I was an oncology nurse who gave lots of really deadly chemo, could I have been affected..probably yes. Exposure to excessive x-rays or radiation but the "experts say not really", farmers etc . All the sites I looked at stated mainly, radiation, chemicals, petroleum workers, Farmers and those exposed to atom bombs so I guess a lot of us must have had that, exposure to atom bombs. Genetics do place into this but no on really knows.
The life expectency of a MM patient used to be 3.5 years but many are living productive lives, and I personally know of a dozen or more people 5-15 years and still going. Several in complete remission and the others not getting worse. Of course this is a small number but it shows it can be done. I will continue on with the explanation of this disease but this is enough information to get you thinking. Cancers are "Staged" Usually stage 1 - 4 with one being mild. In MM there are only 3 stages, I guess they figured stage 4 was death. I am a survivor of this disease and I was end stage 3 and that was 5 years ago. I endeavor to write about all cancers but thought I could at least showcase this for a while. There are dozens if not hundreds of MM blogs so I am giving you the overview. There are many blogs who talk of treatment, different types of MM etc but in my opinion no stage is good. Take care my friends June has been a month of many good souls passing on, not only from cancer but from tragic things such as Iraq war syndrome (suicides). That is so tragic. Heart attacks in young people so pray for all those who lost loved ones this month as they are many. God bless you all this night....

5 comments:

  1. I have also read many of these statistics you write about here. I have, however, met several African American men and women who have MM. I live in a fairly highly populated and ethnically diverse area of NJ. But I have met just as many, if not more, of the folks who do not fit the age, gender, and racial profiles of those most likely to get MM. I have met a Philipino man in the waiting room and another Asian man at a support group meeting whose dad also had MM so Asians are getting MM too. [An aside here, the Philipino man had ELEVEN siblings and only 1 HLA match for a possible allo transplant out of all 11 and when his sister tested to be a match, it took well over a year of fighting with government(s) to get her permission to come into the country to donate cells for him if he decided to go that route(she was an older woman so I think she was harvesting for him regardless.)]Anyway, my husband was dx'ed at 43, is caucasian, but has had extensive, job-related exposure to toxic substances which have been implicated in MM along with wood dust(he owns a wood flooring bus.) so I am pretty convinced that is why he has MM today.
    I think toxins are behind a lot of cancers, not just MM, but one just never knows. I know folks who were organic enthusiasts, exercisers and all that who got cancer too.
    Truth is just about everything we breath, eat, and put on our skin has toxic properties. I see that changing now though in our lifetime as awareness increases which is great for our kids/grandkids. Hopefully the cancer rates start to fall eventually. Sorry to get so long-winded here. Thanks for writing a great blog.

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  2. A bit late but thanks so much it is so true and we must be our own guardians. Hope your husband improves. Thanks

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  3. Would like to know how you are currently doing with your MM. My uncle was diagnosed almost two years ago after having a tumor removed from his spine. His most recent tests show elevated Kappa Quant Free Light Chains, well past the generalized normal high. However, other than his back giving him issues and him tiring more quickly than he used to, he feels pretty well most of the time. He was given chemo well after his back healed up but it did not appear to help matters. He is 52, WM. What have you been doing to stave off your MM levels? I have been trying to get him to stop eating so much sugar and cut back on his salts since chloride build up can cause kidney problems. I would like to know what else I can do for him. God bless.

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  4. Hi,

    My dad has had MM for over a year now. He has not done any Chemo, and wants to fight his cancer naturally. Recently he had a huge M Protein spike, does anyone have any advice on fighting MM naturally or lowering his M Protein? Any advice would be appreciated. He is currently juicing daily, and eats a raw vegan diet. Please email me tcartaxo @ hotmail. com

    Tracy

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