Persistent fatigue induced by interferon-alpha

[EPguy]

I sort of randomly came across this one.

sciencedirect.com/science/a...

<<Patients who develop persistent fatigue experience greater increases in IL-6 and 10 in response to IFN-α.>>

Some of us do experience new fatigue on INF. IL-6 and 10 can be blood tested, but I don't know if Dr would authorize.

Il-6 is generally bad, IL-10 good, from my searching. Some of the supplements we've discussed affect il-6 and 10. Curcumin cuts il-6 but increases il-10 from what I can find.

This is mostly FYI, being something to know about INF and fatigue.

[jon1972]

Thank you for sharing. I've suffered a lot of fatigue for the past few months and thought it was the Zyrtec. I read a post on here recently that talked about Besremi + Zyrtec = bad, but I ruled that out as the problem. I also was taking Propranolol and have now discontinued that too. Was taking it off label for anxiety. The brain fog and fatigue seems to be improving now, but I'll know more in the next week or so. Not sure what I'll do about the anxiety and high heart rate now if I cant take the Propranolol. I can't tolerate those SSRI's and stuff that messes with your neurotransmitters.

[EPguy in reply to jon1972]

I briefly took a "natural" supp that worked well for anxiety when I was deep in Covid Mar 2020. It made my ears red and hot but was really relaxing. But I stopped bec I figured if it's that good it must be a liver or other risk with all the herbs etc in it.

Did your anxiety start with the INF?

[jon1972 in reply to EPguy]

No I've had anxiety issues my whole life. I know a lot of people talk about anxiety on here and drawing correlations, but I think just having a disorder like this causes anxiety in itself. If your prone to anxiety like myself that doesn't help lol. Not saying there can't be issues with IFN causing anxiety, but I know in my case I already had it.

[EPguy in reply to jon1972]

You're so very right on MPN and anxiety. Wishing you well and and that your fog and fatigue continue to get better.

[hunter5582]

As I recall IL-6 is proinflammatory and IL-10 is anti-inflammatory. Neither is good or bad. It is all about having the right balance based on what you body needs. Inflammation is good when needed for healing. Not so good when there is too much of it. It is all about balance,

[EPguy in reply to hunter5582]

Makes sense, it's about "when" as much as "what". I think IL-6 is good when it is reacting to short infection etc, but bad when it persists with chronic inflammation. Does that seem right? Could be the inflammation which INF makes by design causes disproportionate IL-6 levels in some patients.

The IL-10 seems more complicated, but I expect also fits the "when" idea.

May be these levels could be part of INF titration if other variables are decent. I doubt many Drs would agree to this however.

[hunter5582 in reply to EPguy]

It is all about having the right balance in your body at any given time. Equally true for the different types of blood cells and the cytokines. We need more WBCs to fight an infection but too many of them at the wrong time is a problem. Same thing applies to the cytokines,