How the Symptoms & Issues Associated With Multiple Myeloma Are Treated
- Going through the psychological pain of multiple myeloma treatment is hard enough already; adding physical symptoms to the mix does not help.
- The symptoms and issues associated with treatment are commonly referred to by the acronym CRAB, which stands for hypercalcemia, renal failure, anemia and bone destruction.
- Each of these symptoms are treated a different way.
When going through multiple myeloma treatment, there are a number of issues patients experience as a result of their treatment regimen.
Read MoreC is for Hypercalcemia in Multiple Myeloma Patients
This means patients are hypercalcemic, which is a condition in which the calcium level in your blood is above normal.
"We treat (hypercalcemia) with drugs like calcitonin, bisphosphonates, fluids, et cetera," Dr. Kazandjian says. "(Hypercalcemia) doesn't usually become a problem, at least up front."
Calcitonin is a hormone that the C-cells in the thyroid gland produce and release, and bisphosphonates are a group of drugs that work by slowing bone loss.
But, he adds, "after multiple lines of therapy and years of disease, you may have bursts where patients progress and have increased calcium. But for the most part, (hypercalcemia) is not too challenging."
R is for Renal Failure
This means that your kidneys start to fail; this "sometimes is challenging in a number of ways," Dr. Kazandjian says. This is because renal failure can potentially be a result of the myeloma itself, he adds.
"Because of that, you cause your kidneys to need treatment, but some of the drugs are not so ideal in the setting of renal failure. So, you have to find a balance," Dr. Kazandjian tells SurvivorNet.
A is for Anemia
Anemia is a condition in which your body lacks enough healthy red blood cells to carry adequate oxygen to your body's tissues. This condition can cause people to become tired, experience skin pallor, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, dizziness, or even a faster-than-normal heartbeat.
Dr. Kazandjian says that treating the underlying condition (myeloma) helps the anemia up front, "when (the anemia) is clearly from the myeloma."
"Other than that, we would with all of these, we would do supportive care," he adds.
Supportive care approaches are used alongside standard care, such as drugs to treat a patient's myeloma, in order to improve the patient's health. These include physical therapy, as well as relaxation techniques.
B is for Bone Destruction; Some Multiple Myeloma Patients Still Present With Broken Bones
Dr. Kazandjian says that in order to treat bone destruction occurring in multiple myeloma patients, "we (doctors) definitely, if you have bone destruction, want to use a bisphosphonate and always recommend calcium and vitamin D, obviously, along with the bisphosphonate."
The fortunate thing, Dr. Kazandjian explains, is that most of the issues that patients may experience with their bones happens at the time of diagnosis.
This is when "patients don't even know they have the diagnosis and end up breaking something and requiring hardware to fix something."
"In the old days, it was really bad," he adds of bone destruction. "That's how people were dying, but even nowadays, patients still present like that."
Dr. Kazandjian adds that after a patient's initial surgery, "or whatever in radiation, for the most part, patients do well with systemic myeloma therapy."
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