I was diagnosed with myeloma almost a year ago in April. Having been very healthy all my life and stronger than most women my age (73), that came as quite a surprise.
Once the diagnosis was established with MRI and bone marrow biopsy, my oncologist started me on the RVD protocol right away. I was taking the Revlimid 25 mg in 21-day cycles, with dex 40 mg over four days at beginning of each Revlimid cycle. Meanwhile, I received subcutaneous Velcade once a week and IV Zometa once a month.
I do have one "expansile" lesion that involves much of the sacrum and encroaches nerves. In the beginning, I was dealing with lots of nerve pain in the right leg, very painful sacral area, and mobility issues – to the point that my husband had to do everything for me.
After several months of the above protocol, I improved dramatically. I am now on maintenance Revlimid of 10 mg, taking it every day, and I still have the Zometa infusions once a month. I have practically no side effects, other than GI problem that is controlled with Lomotil (diphenoxylate and atropine) when needed, and that is also improving now.
As I said, I greatly improved over a few months, and now I am relatively back to normal. Have to be careful with activities, but I drive, take care of my housework, am enjoying life and feel great!
My labs never showed the M protein spike, and everything else remains normal in my lab work.
So far, bone survey and repeated MRI shows no other bone lesions.
I do drink LOTS of water every day.
I guess, from what I am reading in these forums, the treatment is a little different for each patient based on what is going on with each one.
Best of luck to you.
Forums
Re: RVD - how is the dosing for a patient selected?
Oops! I need to make a correction to my comments entered previously.
I had the Velcade shots twice a week initially. Guess I'm having memory lapses? LOL
I had the Velcade shots twice a week initially. Guess I'm having memory lapses? LOL
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Norman's Girl
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