The Colon Club

So, I finally went to see my rheumatologist to check on my Lupus, since I skipped our 6 months checkups while I was dealing with my cancer treatments. I haven’t taken Hydroxychloroquine because it interfered with chemo, and haven’t resumed taking it after chemo because we both felt that I was stable and feeling good and maybe chemo helped that aspect as well. So, I took my blood tests and my Lupus markers are still there but within the range I’ve always been. However, my AST, ALT is higher than it was even during chemo, at 90 (range 10-35UL), and 127 (range 6-29UL), respectively. Vitamin B12 1964 (range 200-1100pg/ml). My rheumatologist is scratching his head and can’t explain, and he sent the results to my onc. and told me to follow up with her. My onc. nurse said my chemo ended 6 months ago so it wouldn’t be the reason, so to follow up with my rheumatologist. Oh, well…Long story short, I am retaking the blood test in about 3 weeks, stopped all supplements, though none of them should have had an impact on liver (baby aspirin, turmeric, berberine, vitamin D, hair/nail/skin , and I asked my oncologist to move up our appointment to Jan 3.

I checked dr. google about high B12. I thought B12 was a good thing, but high levels of it is indicative of solid cancers? Ugh, I really should not have searched and I am trying not to freak out…

It is so hard to resist (going to Dr Google), isn't it? I'm sorry about the abnormal values - I've got no knowledge though, hopefully your oncologist has some explanation, or can prescribe tests that will shed some light on what's going on. Hopefully nothing serious. I hope you manage to relax for the holidays XXXXX

Claudine, thank you. Yes, it is nearly impossible not to go to Dr. Google. But I feel good right now, so there is that. Going on a cruise on Dec 26, which I optimistically booked in sept, before omnicrom. Now I am sort of hoping the cruise line will cancel, which obv they won’t. And I won’t cancel because it cost me an arm, a leg and some other body parts

Sunnycd wrote:... Going on a cruise on Dec 26, which I optimistically booked in sept, before omnicrom. Now I am sort of hoping the cruise line will cancel, which obv they won’t. And I won’t cancel because it cost me an arm, a leg and some other body parts

Best wishes for a pleasant and relaxing cruise.

If you know the name of your cruise ship, you can track it in real-time with the link below:

https://www.cruisemapper.com/

Just type in the name of your cruise ship, and the tracker will tell you where the ship is right now. It may also indicate the next port-of-call for the ship.

Good luck, and have an enjoyable time over the holidays!

Sunnycd wrote:…Long story short, I am retaking the blood test in about 3 weeks, stopped all supplements, though none of them should have had an impact on liver (baby aspirin, turmeric, berberine, vitamin D, hair/nail/skin , and I asked my oncologist to move up our appointment to Jan 3. …

Could the supplements possibly be the problem??

Here's a 2017 article that might be relevant:
https://www.consumerreports.org/health/liver-damage-from-supplements-is-on-the-rise/

Sunnycd wrote:
... Going on a cruise on Dec 26, which I optimistically booked in sept, before omnicrom. Now I am sort of hoping the cruise line will cancel, which obv they won’t. And I won’t cancel because it cost me an arm, a leg and some other body parts

So, are you back from the cruise now? How did it go? And how did your January 3 appointment with the oncologist go?

Hi, JJH! Came back from the cruise and everything was great! The best part really, was that there was no Wi-Fi (actually, you could pay a gazillion dollars to get some slow Wi-Fi on the ship, which we declined), so we caught up on sleep, reading and talking…

I retook the blood tests and my AST and ALT are still elevated and above the range but much lower than what it was. My oncologist will “keep and eye” on it, whatever that means, but I stopped taking all supplements. She told me to only take baby aspirin and vitamin D. The other supplements had been recommended to me by MSK’s integrative team, Dr. Deng. My suspicion is that it was the turmeric pills. The bottle says the serving is 1,000 or 2 pills a day. He told me to take 4,500 a day. I even asked…huh, you mean 9 pills a day? The other thing is that my WBC are very low at 30, so I’m trying to figure out what I can do to bring it up…I’m eating well, and I gained 10 lbs in the cruise eating only very healthy foods (I swear), so I don’t know what I can add to the diet without any supplements to would make me less anemic…oh, and my CEA is slightly up at 2.7, but my onc didn’t even mention it, so I think that’s no cause for alarm, right?

Sunnycd wrote:Hi, JJH! Came back from the cruise and everything was great! The best part really, was that there was no Wi-Fi (actually, you could pay a gazillion dollars to get some slow Wi-Fi on the ship, which we declined), so we caught up on sleep, reading and talking…

Sunnycd,

I'm glad you had a nice cruise! It looks like you got back just in time:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/12/cruise-covid-cases-ship-industry/