Strategies For Keeping Blood Counts Up?

[AKHepper]

what can I eat to try and keep from having my dose reduced this time? My white cells went too low last time. I'm gonna try eating a lot of raw spinach and oranges and rare beef and see what happens.
There was a guy around here back in '03 that swore by beef he he

[evangelin]

I think I remember that some mushrooms use the same metabolic pathway as the protease inhibitors so you'd want to check that out carefully. I tend to remember things in a vague sort of way and I have to go to work so I have no time to go back and try to look it up.  The possible drug interactions have  changed now and it adds a whole new dimension of worry to creative supplementing.  If you read my cautionary tale above about melatonin, I now live with some regret for having included it in Joe's arsenal when he was on TX.
Ev

[Trish77]

I took mushroom compound while on treatment to do what I could to help my white counts, specifically containing Lentinin.  I'm not sure it helped much, might have but didn't hurt either.  Here's a link I used to search out natural products I could add to my diet that might help - Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, so not exactly a snake-oil salesman's site.  

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11570.cfm

Good luck with your upcoming treatment.

Trish

[orphanedhawk]

I get neupogen for free and you can too.

Amogen the makers of neupogen, has something called the Safety Net foundation for those w/o insurance and low income.
Phone: [phone]

You will need to apply, show proof of income.

It's a replacement program.
Your doctor will need to write a prescription for you.

I get it from a Specialty Pharmacy which ships it out and takes a couple of days to get to me.

U.S. Specialty Care
Karol Seidel
7472 S. Tucson Way suite 100B
Englewood Colorado 80112
phone: [phone]

[evangelin]

I am not too certain that melatonin is a great idea during TX.  In my search for what to do to help the platelet issue , I became concerned that melatonin may raise and lower the wrong cytokines needed for success during TX.  I am a very regular person with no credentials of any kind.  I have looked at many supplements out of what seemed like necessity for my husband.  I can't say for certain that this is the case and I didn't keep records of which studies I read that brought me to the conclusion to not use melatonin during TX but there were red flags which lead me to this conclusion.  
I did make the choice, this time around, to give my husband 4 shark liver oil capsules per day (Swanson Vitamin brand) to help keep his platelets from causing a dose reduction during TX. I at least know of some cases where this was used with some success and where SVR's also occured.  I can't say the same for melatonin.
Figuring out which supplements are best and safe is a minefield and I'd stay out of that minefield if we weren't to a point of needing to take some risks.  
My husband is doing Victrelis and he had a 2 log drop during the lead in.  He never had anything like this response in previous TX attempts. Apparently, shark liver oil did no harm in response.  He is also taking 1600 mg. of Sam-E and a large dose of TMG such as was used with some success in a few studies.  I am mentioning this in case anyone was thinking that it had to be the shark liver oil that made the difference.  There is now way to know and I am giving God all the glory anyway.
I have plenty of fear about telling people what we are doing because I can't stand the thought of leading someone astray.  Mainly, I just thought it best to bring up the potential problems of slowing down TX response with melatonin...of course, maybe I am wrong.  Just off the top of my head, I think IL6 and IL10 were raised from taking melatonin and this wasn't compatible to a good TX response.  I don't have the time to go look it all up again but my reasoning was something along those lines.  It does help the platelets, but if it does that at the expense of TX response, it is bad news. I can at least say that my husbands past response wasn't very good and he was taking melatonin on the last round. Was it partially to blame???? Who can know.
Ev

[nowhine]

AK the trail will not allow any rescue drugs only dose reductions.

[Diamando6]

Someone mentioned Melatonin is ok for PLT and wbc! Something like 10 gr. per day.

[Diamando6]

High Iron is no good for liver.

[Diamando6]

If you eat a lot of spinach, watch out for your iron levels!

[AKHepper]

neupogen 2x a week, how much does that cost? I got no insurance or income...

[AKHepper]

Yeah, I figured this might be a wild goose chase, but I was able to raise my dose up a little last time after I started juicing spinach.

[flcyclist]

My whites are consistantly low and I haven't changed much in my diet.  I'm on neupogen 2x per week, see my cbc's prior to each shot and notice on a Monday after the Friday Interferon shot, its way down.   I agree that a good diet is very smart, but IMHO will have little effect on the cbc's.  Talk to your doctor about rescue drugs if needed.

[hostalavistababy]

While undergoing antiviral therapy, neutropenia, thrombopenia and hemolytic anemia cannot be controlled with diet.  Giving the body nourishement is important as well as a balanced but with some people unacceptable low blood values are going to occur regardless of diet.

[beeblessed]

Thanks James!  I can certainly use this info too.

AKHepper -- Thanks for posting this question.  Best to you!

[James10500]

Check this out.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5139714_increase-white-blood-cells.html