Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Month Five of
Dr. Michael Snyderman's
Antiretroviral Boilermaker

Dr. Michael Snyderman, an oncologist with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and ME/CFS, started the HIV drug AZT five months ago to treat both diseases.  Five days after beginning AZT, he added another HIV drug, raltegravir (Isentress).  The third FDA-approved HIV drug shown in test-tube studies to be effective against XMRV is tenofovir (Viread), which he plans on adding to the mix next month.  "I haven't started tenofovir yet because I want to collect enough data to sort out what is happening," Snyderman explains.  He calls his cocktail a boilermaker.

For the year before he began the HIV meds, Snyderman experienced lower extremity neuropathic pain but couldn't figure out why.  And for a few weeks before beginning treatment he became more fatigued than usual and couldn't concentrate by the end of the workday, "which isn't good if you are taking care of sick people, so I started thinking I would have to retire." In addition, his pain had become "agonizing."

During the first two weeks of treatment, there was no improvement, and the only drug side effect was mild nausea. At the third week, however, the pain resolved completely and his concentration and energy began to improve.  "I am still tired though maybe 25 percent better," Snyderman says.  "I believe it must take a long time to heal the damage done directly by the virus and done by the elevated cytokines. Stopping the virus and lowering the cytokines must be important and should be our initial goal, but there are other issues like dealing with the deconditioning. I am not an expert on CFS so I can't go beyond that."

On the HIV drugs, Snyderman's elevated cytokines have normalized, and his cancer markers have improved as well.

Link to Snyderman's most recent posters here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/40929474  or here:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/40933222

9 comments:

  1. Dr. Snyderman's experience is very encouraging. Thanks for reporting this, Mindy.

    Patricia Carter
    XMRV+, 24 years ME

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  2. Thank you Mindy for reporting on dr. Snyderman. So far so good! Can't wait for clinical trials.

    Esther
    10 years of ME

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  3. Your reporting is very much appreciated and valued by the ME/CFS community. Thank you.

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  4. Thank you Mindy !

    Do you know, which cytokines Dr. Snyderman means, or are you otherwise able to find out?

    Speedy

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  5. Dr. Speedy, Click on the links at the bottom of the post for the cytokines. The biggest change was in interleukin 8, significantly elevated in some ME/CFS patients.

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  6. Thank you !!
    I couldn't read the poster !

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  7. Hi Mindy
    Thank you so much for all your posts on this blog. A life information saver!
    Just wondering if you have heard of Prof Luc Montagnier joining ESME as an honorary member. Interesting isn't it, wondering what the psychosomatic/behavioural model supporters of ME would have to say about that...
    http://www.esme-eu.com/
    All the best!
    P

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  8. Hi Mindy and thanks for this blog!

    I'm wondering if you have any new information on Dr Snyderman's progress?

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  9. do not believe in the xmrv hype and aids drugs... www.watercure.com www.watercure2.org

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