Eosinophils

[Tunabird]

Anyone dealing with high Eosinophils? How does it effect you?

[Momo12]

Hi - Does chemo Therapy and steroids help ?

[Tunabird in reply to Momo12]

Yes, they do.

[grindhaus]

I have EGPA. High eosinophils is what landed me in the hospital with acute chest pain (pneumonia), although at the time I didn't know it. My pulmonologist was asking me if my eosinophils were always elevated like that? He was concerned, they were REALLY abnormally high- and there could be many causes. I didn't know- we hadn't done WBC differentials in the past 10 years I guess. I was discharged with a 20 day course of prednisone which knocked the levels back down, but my doctors were scratching their heads.

Two months later, the 2nd time, it was severe leg pain, I was having trouble standing and walking by time I got to ER. My legs were burning, red and very swollen- they were semi numb, pins and needles while losing sensation at same time. They dosed me with IV steroids that night and gave me a lot of dilaudid for the pain. Over the next 3 days they tried only 30mg orally. I knew it wasn't enough. By the 2nd night I was getting sicker and had more trouble breathing. rescue inhalers weren't helping. Morning of the 3rd day I was quite ill, running a 102F temp, legs in tremendous pain, wheezing almost constantly and just felt awful. I was on the verge of anxiety attack because I couldn't breathe. They upped the dose to 60mg and managed to drop the eosinophil levels back down closer to normal levels and I found some relief.

More than 2 years later, I can't seem to get the prednisone down to 10mg and maintain the remission. it appears that for us, remission by drugs is easily attained, but the rate of relapse is high. I have bloodwork done every 6 weeks. A sudden rise in eosinophils indicates some trouble. I start feeling crappy and weak and tired (like, more than usual). Meds get upped for a while to deal with it- then the slow crawl back downwards. Rinse, repeat. So far, they have prevented a serious relapse and I have not experienced symptoms as bad as when I was first diagnosed (touch wood).

I was posting on Viv's thread on relapses about possible connection between high e levels and spring pollen.

healthunlocked.com/vasculit...

I hope you have your eosinophil gremlins under control-- how much prednisone does it take?

[Tunabird in reply to grindhaus]

Thank you for your response. I also have EGPA...was diagnosed two years ago.