Bradycardia

Cycles in the pomalidomide study are 28 days long. Every third cycle, the protocol calls for an electrocardiogram - I'm not sure why. The comments on mine always say "Marked sinus bradycardia, otherwise normal ECG." Today's was the same - no significant change from the previous ECG in early May. No problem.

From the Saturday Evening Post, July / August 2012

Bradycardia simply means that the resting heart rate (pulse rate) is low, in this case 43, when a rate of 60 or more would be normal. My heart rate is lower than normal because I'm a runner - it gradually went down within a few months after I started running ten years ago. This is not a problem - many runners have lower heart rates, as do other endurance athletes.

Since the total number of beats in a week or a month is far fewer than otherwise, even considering the higher heart rates during our runs, we like to tell ourselves that our hearts won't wear out as soon as they might. It's total rubbish, I suppose, because hearts don't wear out, they fail from disease, but you never know.

I'm going on about bradycardia because the myeloma results are boring, except to me. IgG is up 9% from 998 to 1090 mg/dL, but it bounces up and down, and M-spike is stable at 1.0. Stable is good - in fact it's wonderful, lifegiving. Someday M-spike will start to rise, as myeloma seems to require, but not today. Lambda light chains are down too, as is the kappa/lambda ratio.  All good.

Most-Recent Test Results:

Test		May 04		May 29		Jun 29		Jul 26		Remarks
M-spike g/dL		1.1		1.1		1.0		1.0		\ Tumor marker no change
IgG mg/dL		1210		1140		998		1090		/ Tumor marker up slightly
Lambda mg/dL		2.75		2.53		3.11		2.30		L free light chains
Calcium mg/dL		10.0		9.7		10.2		9.7		Great
Creatinine mg/dL		1.0		1.2		1.0		1.1		Kidney, OK
HGB g/dL		15.6		15.7		14.7		14.5		Hemoglobin, OK
RBC M/uL		4.31		4.37		4.15		4.05		Red cells, a little low
WBC K/uL		5.3		4.6		4.9		4.9		White cells, OK
ANC K/uL		2.70		1.80		2.30		2.20		Neutrophils, OK

Related Links:

My Myeloma		A discussion of my myeloma, not very technical.
My Treatment History		Not technical.
My Test Charts		Graphic displays of several key test results over time.
My Test Result Table		Somewhat technical. Best with a wide browser window.
My Supplement Regimen		With links to where I buy them.