Neupogen

On Friday morning, we went to see Dr. Grayson in Temple.  Morgan has been in a great mood this past week and has come a long way since our last visit to Temple.   She had a lot of fun playing in the exam room and looking at the animal pictures on the walls. 

Dr. Grayson explained that the Autoimmune Neutropenia is not caused by a lack of neutrophils being made in her bone marrow.  There is actually an antibody in her bloodstream that kills her neutrophils which is why her counts are so low.  Autoimmune Neutropenia occurs in 1/500,000 and there is no known cause.  Fortunately, he said she will grow out of this by the time she is school-aged and probably sooner!!! 

In the meantime, we will give her Neupogen injections three times a week.  The Neupogen causes her body to make more neutrophils to compensate.  On Fridays, she will get blood taken in town to monitor what her levels are doing.  Hopefully in a few weeks her white blood counts will be at a normal level.  Until then, she won’t be able to play with other kids and we just need to be really careful about where we take her.   We are so fortunate for the injections as her low levels can put her at a high risk for deep skin abscesses, pneumonia and mouth sores (which she already has had). 

The only negative side effect to the injections is that it can cause some bone pain and headaches.  She was irritable after her first injection but she has two incisors coming in, so it might have just been her teeth bothering her.  Pray that her levels normalize soon and that she doesn’t have any side effects.  Thank you so much!