I have been told I am in remission for Chronic Lymphatic Leukemia (CLL). That's the good news. Recently I read on a CLL forum I'm on that many CLL patients, because of their weakened immune system, may not be totally protected for COVID after receiving the COVID vaccinations. I decided to ask my Internist on my recent visit to have a test done for antibodies to see if I would test positive since I received the Pfizer vaccines back in February. He had blood drawn and the test results came back negative yesterday. It means that no one should automatically assume that because the received the vaccine, they are positive for COVID antibodies. Everyone should still be cautious. BTW I understand CVS Pharmacies are doing free antibody tests in case anyone is interested. REMAIN CAUTIOUS !!! Here is a good article: creakyjoints.org/living-wit...
Best to all, Jack O South Carolina USA
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And if you want to dig deep and watch a video of Dr, Furman explaining the issues, (please read the replies, some summarize what Dr. Furman explained). healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...
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And a quote from my favorite explainer of all things complicated made easy to understand- Dr. Susan LeClair: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...
Same for me. Recently uMRD, both vaccines. And no antibodies. Or very little. Who really knows. So I’m staying safe. And great new on your remission. Feels great for me.
Make sure the antibody test is testing for the spike proteins from the vaccine and not covid infection antibodies. These are different tests, the LLS study tests for both.
Hi, I believe CVS is testing to see if you have antibodies from having Covid. They do not test to see if you have antibodies from the vaccine. I’m in Boston and needed to go to LabCorp to have that test.
Thanks for the clarification. There is so much to learn about COVID and vaccine testing. My Internist believes the COVID vaccine will become an annual requirement right along with the influenza vaccination.
As others have pointed out, there are a few different tests out there. Per the labcorp website, the nucleocapsid test is “an aid in identifying individuals with an adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2 indicating recent or prior infection.” This would not identify those with an immune response to the vaccine.
The semi-quantitate spike protein test is the test most are using to see if antibodies are present following the vaccine, however at this point in time no one actually knows what the results mean with regard to protective immunity levels. The labcorp site has this in the description for its semi-quantitative test: “Values generated with this assay cannot be used to determine whether or not an individual has developed protective immunity against infection and cannot be directly compared to other assays until a universal standard is established for assay calibration”
On the labcorp test results themselves is a disclaimer that says: “It is yet undetermined what level of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein correlates to immunity against developing symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 disease.”
There are a few qualitative tests out there also, same disclaimers and results only indicate positive or negative.
The universal standards aren’t there yet. Research is being done, but we’re not quite there yet.
For those getting tests the important things to know are which test was done, and also that we don’t know yet what the results mean, that we can’t presume that results that are positive for antibodies is the same as protective immunity from the virus. We also can’t presume that negative results means we don’t have any immunity because there are other components to our immune system, but we also don’t have good ways to measure that at this time.
From the CLL Society: “there are no data in CLL patients to suggest that presence of antibodies confers protection, or even lack of antibodies means no immunity.”
Until more research can be done and better testing measures developed for the public, what we do know is those of us with CLL likely get a lower or absent response to the vaccine, and that response can also be further impacted by certain treatments. And we simply can’t rely on current testing to give us a realistic assessment of our level of protection against Covid.
I’ve been on all over this as well. I called my hematologists office yesterday. Short answer. There’s a lot more than antibodies to consider. She believes we’ve got some protection with the vaccine. Since there’s not enough data she recommends still masking up in public and to continue to take precautions. I told her that I’ve been eating inside in restaurants She said to continue what I’ve been doing and keep the mask on except for eating. Her advice was to not panic. And we will have some immunity with the vaccine. We’ll see what the data says Hope this eases some of your minds
Wow, you received much more encouraging news than I. I’m negative for antibodies six weeks post second vaccine(Pfizer). I was dx in January 2017 and have been taking Imbrutinib since February 2017. I was told to continue being extremely careful and no inside restaurants. So many different opinions with hematologist. I haven’t been inside a restaurant since covid began.
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