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Old Mon Apr 2, 2012, 04:56 PM
Lisa V Lisa V is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Waimanalo, Hawaii
Posts: 401
Dena, that's great that you've had no adverse reactions! Sounds like the tinkering with the protocol worked. I'll bet that's a relief!

You're not completely out of the woods as far as serum sickness goes, however. Hopefully you won't have any of that either, but it can occur weeks after the ATG infusions, which is why the prednisone is continued for a while. I think the usual time frame for the taper is one month (somebody correct me if I'm wrong). Ken had to taper off more quickly because he reacted so badly to it, so I'm not sure.

Cyclosporine is usually continued for about 6 months, but it can depend on other factors, such as how your response has been and what your counts are doing. They're finding that longer, slower tapers seem to be more successful.
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-Lisa, husband Ken age 60 dx SAA 7/04, dx hypo MDS 1/06 w/finding of trisomy 8; 2 ATGs, partial remission, still using cyclosporine
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