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Old Mon Apr 11, 2011, 07:16 PM
Neil Cuadra Neil Cuadra is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Los Angeles, California
Posts: 2,553
Janire,

I'm sorry to hear about your relapse, especially after you and your doctor were so patient about lowering your cyclosporine dose.

Repeated doses of ATG have been a successful treatment for many patients, including some of our forum members. Some forum members have had AA for 20 years or more and I recently met a woman in her 60s who was diagnosed with AA as a child.

You might like to read Andrea Pecor's story and the thread by peter v. c. for words from long-term patients. Andrea is still doing fine after 5 rounds of ATG.

Being just into your 30s you are probably a good candidate for a transplant if you are otherwise healthy. I'm sorry you don't have the benefit of a matched sibling, and deciding between treatments can be hard, but keep in mind that it's a benefit to have multiple options. My wife, who was diagnosed with AA and then with MDS, had an unrelated donor transplant while in her 40s. She was cured. Every patient's situation is different but I think you have multiple reasons to be optimistic.

Doctors and transplant specialists are getting better and better at non-related donor transplants. Transplants still have many risks but fewer than ever before. Transplant procedures for unrelated donors are so refined that for senior citizens they actually prefer a younger matched unrelated donor over an older matched related donor!

Good luck with your ATG. I hope your recovery will be swift and your counts will rebound. If you have time, let us know how it goes and feel free to use these forums to talk to other patients.
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