I have been mostly lurking and reading trying to educate myself. Only a few chosen family and friends have been told so far. I am still in the process of finding out exactly where I'm at in this journey. I'm scheduled for a bone marrow biopsy next week and hopefully will have a better idea after results come back.
Let me start about 10 years back. I went to GP complaining of fatigue and muscle and joint pain several times over a few years, was diagnosed with depression, I thought funny, I didn't feel depressed, but every antidepressant they tried didn't help. I was tested for MS, I had MRI's with and without contrast, CT scan. I was told I had ruptured and bulging disks in lower back, which explained the back pain.
A few years later, after some blood test was conducted, suddenly I had a very high ANA come back on a blood test. Lupus was mentioned and I was scheduled for an appointment with a rheumatologist. She ran more blood tests and X-rays and said I had fibromyalgia. Several more blood test later the ANA never showed up again.
A few years later my GP started sending out test results by mail. This is when I noticed in my blood work that my IgG would be slightly high, I didn't know what it meant, if anything, so I asked him. He simply said as long as everything else is good it means nothing. My rheumatologist never mentioned an evaluated IgG, but schedule my appointment every 6 months and always did X-rays. I never could get copies of test results from her office, I was always told we will mail you a copy and I never got them.
Than all the sudden the rheumatologist left town and most of her patients weren't notified. I was one of them, Living in West Virginia, rheumatologists are far and few in between. It took me almost 1 1/2 years to find and get an appointment with another one. My GP conducted blood tests every 4 month due to low thyroid and adjusting my medication when needed.
I started noticing the IgG. Sometimes it would be high, other times in normal range. One time when the level showed high, and I had nothing better to do, I plugged it into Google just to see what it meant. Well, you know you're not suppose to look your symptoms up on the internet because it will scare the heck out of you!
The first thing that popped up was multiple myeloma. I was horrified, with my dad dying from leukemia at 65 and my brother died at 52 from a heart attack, but a few months before he died he had kidney failure and was being tested for bone cancer. My mother died at 62, 5 year prior she had broken her arm and knee, had to have pins and bars put in to fix them, doctor said her bones were like mush when they attempted to push on them to put them back in place?!? Yet they didn't test her for anything. Just assumed it was osteoporosis.
My first appointment with the new rheumatologist he knew something was wrong right away. Several tests and appointments later he was sending me to an oncologist within a month of my first appointment with him. The oncologist did full body x-ray, blood tests. He first said MGUS, but on the second appointment stated he thought it may be smoldering myeloma due to the IgG being 2272 mg/dl, and wanted to do a bone marrow biopsy. All other results appear 'normal' except low vitamin D from what I can tell. Results of the 24-hour urine is not in yet, he said the full body x-ray came out clear.
Feb 6, 2017
IMMUNOGLOBULIN A 80 mg/dL 40 - 350 mg/dL
IMMUNOGLOBULIN M 198 mg/dL 50 - 300 mg/dL
IMMUNOGLOBULIN G 2272 mg/dL 650 - 1600 mg/dL
WBC 12.0 10 3.5 - 10.3 10
RBC 4.85 10 3.80 - 5.24 10
HGB 14.0 gm/dL 11.8 - 15.8 gm/dL
HCT 42.0 % 34.6 - 46.2 %
MCV 86.6 fl 82.3 - 96.7 fl
MCH 28.8 pg 27.6 - 33.2 pg
MCHC 33.3 gm/dL 32.6 - 35.4 gm/dL
RDW 13.1 % 12.4 - 15.2 %
PLATELET CT 262 10 140 - 440 10
MPV 9.8 fl 6.6 - 10.2 fl
PMN'S 72.2 % %
LYMPHOCYTES 19.5 % %
MONOCYTES 6.5 % %
EOSINOPHIL 1.1 % %
BASOPHILS 0.7 % %
PMN ABS 8.7 10 1.5 - 6.4 10
LYMPHS ABS 2.4 10 0.9 - 3.4 10
MONOS ABS 0.8 10 0.2 - 0.9 10
EOS ABS 0.1 10 0.0 - 0.5 10
BASOS ABS 0.10 10 0.00 - 0.20 10
TOTAL PROTEIN 8.1 gm/dL 6.4 - 8.3 gm/dL
ALBUMIN FOR ELP 54.3 % 59.7 - 70.6 %
GLOBULIN 45.7 % 29.4 - 40.3 %
ALPHA 1 2.6 % 1.4 - 2.7 %
ALPHA 2 8.6 % 7.2 - 11.1 %
BETA 10.0 % 8.0 - 14.7 %
GAMMA 24.5 % 8.4 - 16.3 %
SERUM ELP A dense M-spike is present at
proximal gamma fraction, consistent with
monoclonal gammopathy
KAPPA FREE LIGHT CHAINS 3.42 mg/dL 0.33 - 1.94 mg/dL
LAMBDA FREE LIGHT CHAINS 1.33 mg/dL 0.57 - 2.63 mg/dL
KAP/LAM FREE LT CHAIN RATIO 2.57 0.26 - 1.65
Dec 13, 2016
IMMUNOGLOBULIN G 2277 mg/dL 650 - 1600 mg/dL
IMMUNOGLOBULIN M 215 mg/dL 50 - 300 mg/dL
IMMUNOGLOBULIN A 76 mg/dL 40 - 350 mg/dL
SERUM ELP The M-protein is confirmed to be
IgG kappa monoclonal gammopathy and
underlying plasma cell dyscrasia.
VITAMIN D 25 HYDROXY 23 ng/mL 30 - 100 ng/mL
I'm not sure where the M spike is in these results, if anywhere at all. It's all a little confusing to me. Once the bone marrow biopsy is completed and the results are in, I'll need to move forward and try to find a specialist reasonably close, if at all possible. I seem to have a bit of bad luck when it come to finding a good reliable doctor, as you can see.
Well that has been my journey so far.
Truly hope all here are doing well.
But given the other options, MGUS would be OK with me at this point! Yes, it is an online MyChart that I got the results from. Next appointment I will ask for a copy of their printed version.
So once I'm out of them this time and the bridge is fixed, if the pain and swelling comes back, I'm at a loss as what to do. 