The story of my cancer journey
Spoke this morning with my medical oncologist who was very pleased with the decrease in creatinine levels yesterday.
We are now back on track to slowly reducing the steroid doses again. This time we won't reduce the dose by as much, as as quickly. We will reduce the dose weekly by just 10 mg. This should help keep us on track without cutting the steroids back too much, too quickly.
So, all in all, back on the original treatment plan.
Had the weekly creatinine level check done today, and it has once again dropped. Seems the increase in steroid dose last week has now put me back on track to lowering my creatinine level to normal values. Not quite there, but getting closer.
The other good news with the blood work is my hemoglobin, which has been low (at times very low) for the past 9 months is almost back up into the normal range. That will help with any fatigue issues I may have had in the past.
That's the update. Will let you all know when we get the cancer scan results back. Should be any day now.
I had my weekly creatinine level check today. Unfortunately it did go up (instead of down) but only by 12 points. So while the increase was not terribly significant, it has gone in the wrong direction this week.
It is quite possible (because it is not an exact science) that my current lower dose of steroids might not be sufficiently suppressing my immune system, which would allow the immunotherapy to continue to damage my kidneys a bit. It is also possible the increase in creatinine is being caused by something else (medication, dehyrdration, etc.)
However, the Oncologists believe it's likely the tapering off of the steroids has made the current dose too low to continue to shut down the immunotherapy. They will move me back up a bit on steroids, and retest in a week. If my creatinine goes down, it was likely a dosing issue with the steroids.
So, not a terrible creatinine report, but we need to get back on track now.
When I began the steroid treatment to help my kidneys out, my creatinine level was 298. The normal range for creatinine is between 62 and 102. With age it sometimes can be a bit higher. Clearly a reading of 298 is high, and indicates kidney impairment. After starting the steroid treatment, my first creatinine check (after 10 days) had dropped to 222. A drop of 76 points. Today, my creatinine level is at 177. Another drop of 45 points. They have reduced my steroid dose for the last 3 weeks, each going down by about 50 mg. In reality, with the lower steroid dose, it would probably result in a bit of a lower drop in creatinine. BUT the reality is, the trend shows my creatinine clearly trying to return to close to normal level. All good news. I suspect we will keep up with the Steroid treatment for now.