Tuesday 26 April 2016

Unwanted Dips

Spring in my parent's back garden
I recently got called back by my local docs as my total white blood cell count has dipped below my usual acceptably low level of 3-and-a-bit. Apparently in an ideal world it would be above 4 and in my world it usually hovers around 3.2 or a little higher or lower. In March it was 2.6 beating my previous record of 2.8 a couple of years ago. At this point there was apparently some head-scratching behind the scenes as usually, at least at my practice, a level this low would often trigger a change or cessation of the medication causing it to dip - in my case Azathioprine. I have now been taking 100mg Azathioprine twice a day for about 4 years and not had too many problems on it to date. 

My neurologist has advised I remain on my current level of medication and have full blood counts every 3 weeks. I think one issue is that no-one knows the correct levels of medications for CLIPPERS except in general terms and the only thing they know about me is that I have been essentially symptom-free while taking Azathioprine. (Of course this doesn't prove that Azathioprine is the *reason* I have been symptom-free). So I think all concerned are a bit loathe to mess with the meds in case it triggers something worse. Having said that I have been told to be very watchful of illnesses which feature high temperatures / fevers and get myself down to the surgery ASAP if one appears. I'm having some more blood taken tomorrow, so in a few days should know if this is a blip or a trend. It's worth mentioning that I had no reason to think there were any problems so although these blood tests are a bit tedious after five years  they are well worth keeping up with as things can and do change.

Read other articles in this series at Living With CLIPPERS.

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Living With CLIPPERS by Bill Crum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.