[loveparis]

Significant drop in free light chain ratio, no treatment

by loveparis on Wed Oct 14, 2015 10:46 am

I have been following labs since June of this year with diagnosis. I have no lesions or CRAB criteria, but presented with a MDE (myeloma defining event) because my free light chain ratio was 293 in June.

In August I saw the specialist and the ratio was up to 440, as well as other myeloma markers. I took a nice vacation and was just back for labs and to lay out the treatment plan. My labs all looked a little better but the most significant change was the ratio was now 152. My IgG is still slowly climbing at 4,900 mg/dL, but I understand this result is slow to follow the free light chain assay by a few weeks when there is a change. This is all pre-treatment. The only change I have made was to start curcumin with bioperine.

Has anyone had this happen to them?

[TerryH]

Re: Significant drop in free light chain ratio, no treatment

by TerryH on Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:11 am

Hi LP,

What happened to your individual kappa and lambda levels when your kappa/lambda ratio changed?

Also, just out of curiosity, what were your immunoglobulin (IgG, IgA, and IgM) levels before the change in the ratio, and after?

[BMaryhoosier]

Re: Significant drop in free light chain ratio, no treatment

by BMaryhoosier on Wed Oct 14, 2015 8:18 pm

What was your kappa free light chain level? You stated your ratio, but not your kappa or your lambda numbers.

[loveparis]

Re: Significant drop in free light chain ratio, no treatment

by loveparis on Wed Oct 14, 2015 11:37 pm

That is the strange thing the lambda went from 1801 to 1096 and the kappa from 4.1 to 7.2. It's a bit of a mystery and I will be starting treatment next week so I may never know if it was related to the curcumin. Just wondering if it is expected that these numbers jump around. I don't think so, but I can't find any info on it.

Thanks for your thoughts.

[TerryH]

Re: Significant drop in free light chain ratio, no treatment

by TerryH on Thu Oct 15, 2015 6:08 pm

Hi LP,

I think it's hard to say what is the "normal" behavior of the free light chains when you have readings like yours, where one of the free light chain levels is so much above the normal range. That being said, free light chain levels can certainly bounce around. There are some graphs of free light chain levels that have been posted here in the forum; see, for example, Multibilly's free light chain levels over the past year or two here:

https://myelomabeacon.org/forum/post35483.html#p35483

and some of Antelope's free light chain results here:

https://myelomabeacon.org/forum/post28051.html#p28051

The curcumin certainly seems to have lowered your high free light chain level, and brought the one that was in the normal range more into the middle of the normal range. On the other hand, it didn't seem to have an effect on your overall IgG level. That's sort of interesting, as my impression from previous people who have posted about curcumin and its effect on their numbers is that the focus is typically on the light chain levels. It makes you wonder if curcumin has an effect more on free light chains than on overall immunoglobulin production.

In any case, good luck with your treatment, and keep us posted on how you're doing.

[loveparis]

Re: Significant drop in free light chain ratio, no treatment

by loveparis on Thu Oct 15, 2015 11:57 pm

Interesting graphs. I will never know if the cumin was the cause, but nothing else was changed so I'm thinking that was it. I found one reference when searching that IgG et all respond weeks after the light chains decrease. Hopefully all numbers will decrease when treatment gets underway.