Scary or Encouraging?

My myeloma is the Immunoglobulin G (IgG) type, so the doctors and I consider that the blood proteins IgG and M-spike (monoclonal protein) are the best markers for my tumor burden.  Last Tuesday IgG jumped 21% from 1390 to 1680 mg/dL, the highest value in years and the largest jump I have ever seen between two measurements.  That jump happened in just one week. Either the myeloma has suddenly gone crazy, or something else is going on.  This blog is titled Myeloma Hope, so I hope that something else is happening, something good. My doctor ML warned me in advance that the myeloma markers might not even be measured during the first eight weeks of the current study, because they might go wild (and presumably scare the pants off a simple country boy like me).  However, until now the measurements have nevertheless been done, hence today's blog about them. Myeloma is a cancer of some (most) of the plasma cells that live in the bone marrow, but not ALL of the plasma cells - there are still some good ones.  Unfortunately there is no way to evaluate the plasma cells (good or bad) without a bone marrow biopsy, and even then you only get the cells at the exact spot of the biopsy - another spot will give a somewhat different result.  However, in my case the good and bad cells both generate Immunoglobulin G, a key constituent of any healthy immune system.  The IgG measurement includes the immunoglobulins generated by BOTH the good and the bad cells, a...
Source: Myeloma Hope - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: blogs