[Beacon Staff]

Weekly Poll - Consultation With MGUS / Myeloma Expert

by Beacon Staff on Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:18 am

This week's poll is about whether you have consulted with an MGUS or myeloma expert about your monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) diagnosis.

A few clarifications:

First, this question is only for readers (and their caregivers) who have MGUS. That is, not smoldering myeloma or active multiple myeloma. We are also running a second poll this week asking the same question of smoldering myeloma patients, and we have previously run a similar poll for active myeloma patients (links are at the end of this post).

Second, if you are a caregiver or family member of an MGUS patient, feel free to answer on their behalf.

Third, by "MGUS or myeloma expert," we are referring to hematologist/oncologists who specialize in MGUS, smoldering myeloma, and multiple myeloma and see many of these types of patients at a given time. Please do not count general oncologists or hematologist/oncologists who treat mostly other types of cancer.

Fourth, you can count any MGUS/myeloma expert whom you see regularly to review lab work, track your progress, or discuss treatment options, or whom you consulted with during one or more private in-person or by-phone meetings in which they reviewed your medical history/records and gave you an informed opinion about if, when, where, or how to manage your MGUS. Please do not count MGUS/myeloma experts you may have communicated with briefly in a public manner (e.g., during a Q&A session of a teleconference call) or without them having access to your medical records (e.g. a brief email exchange or these forums).

As always, feel free to post comments, thoughts, or feedback in the space below. They can be very useful to other readers. For instance, why have you chosen to consult or not consult with an MGUS/myeloma expert?

As mentioned above, we're running two polls this week. Here's a link to the same poll open to smoldering myeloma patients:
https://myelomabeacon.org/forum/weekly-poll-consultation-with-smoldering-myeloma-expert-t1285.html

For those who are interested, we ran a similar poll a while back asking active myeloma patients how many myeloma experts they had consulted with about if, when, where, and how to treat their multiple myeloma:
https://myelomabeacon.org/forum/weekly-poll-consultation-with-myeloma-experts-t1071.html

[Terrylynne]

Re: Weekly Poll - Consultation With MGUS / Myeloma Expert

by Terrylynne on Wed Sep 05, 2012 5:29 pm

Yes, I have consulted with a specialist