Have you had under 1.0 white blood count?

[Gardner-NY]

Curious to know who has had their white blood count go down to below 1.0 after transplant. My spouse is 10 months post transplant and on 9/21 wBC went down to .51 and he felt fine. WBC has been low since mid August despite removing him from cellcept, and improving the CMV number of 16,500 to 487 last week. Now he stays at home except for blood work M,W,F instead of once a week. We rushed to pharmacy to get the medication in shot form "neupogen" (I think that is the name) and I gave it to him at home and stayed home 2 days due to possible nasty side effects (never happened). Does anyone have knowledge of this issue and how long it took to improve? thanks! It has been new problems the past 8 months in a row. He cannot get a break to just be 'well' yet.

[danielleblock]

I am actually dealing with that right now! I am 10.5 weeks post transplant. Neutrophils fell to 0.1 (crazy low), so I received Neupogen yesterday. Bones are ache, but that is to be expected. I will have repeat labs tomorrow to check WBC count, and if I need another injection I can receive immediately. My research shows that it usually improves after 1-2 injections. Did his team also reduce some of his anti-rejection meds to help increase count? My team did that and plan to bring them back once my counts are stable.

[Gardner-NY in reply to danielleblock]

Hi danielleblock, we saw transplant doctor and pharmacist yesterday and my spouse wBC went down to .51, then I gave him the shot of neupogen and it climbed to 2.21 and now it's down again to 1.59. 3X a week he must do blood work and cannot be outside even with a mask on and stay out of public places. So our planned timeshare vacation next week has been cancelled by this dr. Yes they reduced his cellcept to taking none for the time being. He got CMV virus in Aug and count was 16,500 and put on Valcyte 4X the normal dose and this most likely make his WBC to go down. But the CMV is now 30 and very soon the Valcyte will be reduced in a big way and Cellcept will be resumed. It took 7.5 months for his low hemoglobin to go up and that finally happened 3 wks ago and now at 13. I had been giving him retocrit shot 3X a week since early March til 2 nights ago, and now that has stopped. The blood chemistry has been the problems my husband has had for 8 months, not an easy road to live. Now he needs to stay home. WE have faith improvements will happen and 'stay'. We need it. I wish you all the best.