Nothing much to add this evening. Working on the Myeloma UK Panel thing, but it'll take a couple more days to finish. The dex-related skin-thinning finger splits continue to be a problem in this cold weather - I keep on top of them to some extent but as soon as one lot clears up another lot start. The snow never came to much, but enough to keep me inside. The eternal constipation issue is OK at the moment on one nightly Senna but it won't be long before something more is needed.
Now starting to think about the next lot of bloods in a week's time. And I shall also have to report to my GP about the Propranolol by then.
Not happy about the 12-week wait for the second Pfizer shot. Thinking about a letter to my MP - will leave that to brew in my subconscious overnight and maybe write something later. Not that I expect to be able to influence government policy, but you have to do what you can.
Otherwise - something my wife said made me think about where I might be now if my GP had missed the signs and I had never been diagnosed with MGUS let alone Myeloma. That left hip lesion / plasmacytoma would still be there or worse, and others might have developed. I might well be spending most of my time in a wheelchair. More lesions in spine and elsewhere, maybe compression fractures of vertebrae, substantial liver and kidney damage... The plain fact is that I've been very lucky to have fended those possibilities off so far, and it's only the pills that are keeping them away. Many MM patients have been far less fortunate.
Some of us who are at very high risk of a serious outcome from COVID-19 have not had ANY vaccination yet; a few weeks delay for the second for people who are already gong to get a high level of protection from one is surely fairer on the rest of us! FixRheunatix
ReplyDeletePoint taken, obviously. But where is the evidence that 12 weeks delay will give the same or better protection than the manufacturer's 3 weeks?
ReplyDeleteToday's Torygraph reports:
"Scientists will know by 'end of the week' if 12-week gap between vaccine doses is working
Scientists will know by the "end of the week" if the extended 12-week spacing between vaccine doses is working, according to a professor who sits on the Government's joint committee on vaccines and immunisation.
Professor Adam Finn - who works out of the University of Bristol - told the BBC's Radio 4 Today programme: "We anticipate by the end of this week or certainly early next week we will get robust answers that will show us how things are working...that will either confirm or tell us we need to adjust our strategy."
He added that initial data, which has not yet been published, suggested that in both the Pfeizer and the Oxford jab "it's likely there will be an increasing protection over that time [of 12 weeks]", counter to the belief of the British Medical Association (BMA).
Doctors from the BMA had urged for the 12-week gap to be halved, but Prof Finn said: "The data that I've seen certainly suggests that it persists nicely through that period and if anything slightly rises and certainly no sign of a significant fall.
I must be careful what I say about the BMA, but I think it would be a really good idea if they understood it better before making public pronouncements."