We want to be able to communicate medical facts which most of you have not heard about.
a. Immunosupression in patients with CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia.) CLL is a common blood disorder which is mostly characterized by increased numbers of lymphocytes (a certain type of white blood cell in the blood.) It is often found by chance during routine blood tests, and patients can go for years feeling fine with no need for treatment.
If you have CLL or know someone who does, they need to know that their immune responses are probably impaired (immunosuppressed) and that they are at risk of COVID virus infection. They must be vaccinated, but their ability to respond to vaccination may be compromised.
The vaccines work by stimulating the production of antibodies which fight off infection, but CLL patients may not be able to produce antibodies at all or in effective quantities.
Your doctor may want to measure your antibody responses (a blood test) after vaccination, and you will certainly need a third dose (booster) as soon as possible after a prescribed waiting period. These facts about CLL are not widely known in the medical community.
Measuring blood antibody levels will become routine in a variety of situations, but the guidelines remain to be completed.
b. Atrial fibrillation is one of the hottest topics in cardiology. It is a common cardiac rhythm disturbance, and in recent years there has been an evolution in diagnosis, risks, and treatment—-especially with an “invasive” method called *ablation. Another method involves use of medications.
There is a sub-specialty of cardiology which involves itself with the myriad of issues surrounding “AF” and it is called electrophysiology. We will be bringing you some of the latest ideas about AF.
* Ablation is a catheter based approach where AF is treated using tiny tubes threaded into the heart by placing the catheter into a vein in the groin. There are a variety of methods being used or evaluated including, in rare cases, open heart surgery.
c. We have had another printing of our book Prevention Does Work: –A Guide to a Healthy Heart. This book was designed for anyone who wants to gain practical, mostly nutritional, information about ways to prevent heart attacks. It is on Amazon for $13.00. The last edition was 2011, but it is still mostly up to date, and the cook book section never is obsolete. Some people need to learn some heart healthy recipes. Click below to read the cover.
d. Booster vaccine shots. If you have one, you may find that you have side effects greater than the first 2 shots. Most often it resembles a cold with a low grade fever (eg 100-101 degrees). You can have fatigue, weakness, reduced appetite, cough, headache,and stuffed nose, and such reactions are usually transient, but they may last for a week or more. Or you might have some unpredictable effects such as low blood pressure or palpitations. Also if you are tested for Covid after the third jab, you might have a “false positive.”
The side effects of boosters are still being studied, so you may want to wait awhile until the dust clears and guidelines are more certain. But if you are immunosuppressed, as in CLL, then you should move quickly.
Paul Goldfinger MD, FACC BSM (Blogfinger School of Medicine.)