Well, vasculitis or granulomas, I think if you have Wegener's, you in general have both.
I mean, it's 'ANCA-positive vasculitis' or Wegener's Granulomatosis.
If you have Wegener's (GPA, sorry Sangye), your small and medium sized vessels are infected,
and as a result of the infection, you develope granulomas, that is to say, the tissue of your vessels becomes 'granulomatose'. At least, that is what I understood from all the talking, the reading and the thinking...
The vessels degenerate, and may even 'fall apart', what is the case when you really have organ- damage, or when you develope the well-known 'saddle-nose', because of degenerating, granulomatosing (falling apart into little pieces) tissue.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is, in general, the process that we all more or less, suffer from...
It DOES truly SUCK!!!!! Ok, that was my scream for the night!!! Happy for all of you who can compose yourselves better than I. Danell (Mitch's wife)
I find this very confusing. My blood tests say ANCA- MPO and ANCA- PR3, both are usually positve. I do have a lung nodule, brain MRI shows sinus involvement, stage 3 kidney disease, and some other problems. I have not had any biopsies. My doctor just says vasculitis - can you have both types? Do you happen to know how high the ANCA factors(scores?) can get?
Ok Phil, you and I had this conversation before concerning RTX (Facebook I believe). But here is where it is confusing to me...When John had BOTH RTX treatments (They called it Rituximab) on the IV bag it said "CHEMO". So I made reference to the infusion Dr who had come in to hook him up and they stated that it is a form of a chemo???
Not sure what to make of that!
Technically it is an monoclonal antibody. But it is considered a chemotherapy treatment I believe as well.
~ Bob
Rtx is not a chemotherapy drug, but since it's used to treat Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma they might store it with other chemo drugs. When a nurse administers chemo, s/he has to take many precautions-- wear certain gloves, throw away the IV bag in special waste, etc.... None of that is necessary with rtx.
I have one of those darned granulomas.... I still have parts of it floating around near the now-dead pituitary....
Yeap, that's me!
Wegener's (GPA )- Apr10, Granulomatous Hypophysitis - Apr10, Diaphragmatic Paralysis - Feb16, Bradycardia - Dec16, Fibromyalgia - 2017, Hypoparathyroidism - 2017. (my story)
Forum Member Map -- world map for you to put a stickpin of where you are located....
When I had my infusions, my Rituxan bag said "Chemo" on it as well. The nurses wore 2 pair of gloves and a cover up over their scrubs.. I also had MRSA on my record at the time so that could be why they used extra pre-caution.
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