Bone and Joint pain explained (today at 12:00 PM)

[Memo To Me]

From our www.mpdsupport.org archives from 1995, pearls of wisdom by
the late Dr. Gilbert
Dear Members: For your information re bone and joint pains in MPD.
Several of you have mentioned that you suffer from bone and/or joint
pains - sometimes attributed to arthritis. I have seen a number of
patients who have this complaint and it has been related to very
active proliferative disease. There is a technique for demonstrating
active sites of bone marrow proliferation using nuclear scans. The
agent that is injected is technicium-sulfur-colloid. It is the same
scanning agent that is used to image the liver and spleen. It is taken
up by macrophages which are cells derived from monocytes and,
ultimately, from the bone marrow precursor cell that is involved in
MPD.

In normal people bone marrow is confined to the central skeleton
(cranium, ribs, sternum, vertebrae, and pelvis. The long bones contain
mostly fat. In MPD the bone marrow expands outward to the long bones
and can be seen even out in the fingers and toes when bone marrow
scanning is done.

The proliferation within the bone marrow cavity may cause pressure
inside the bone that, in turn, causes inflammation of the covering of
the bone
(periostium). The resulting periostitis may be painful. In some
patients with bone and joint pain treatment with myelosuppressive
therapy has decreased or eliminated these symptoms by reducing the
amount of bone marrow in the cavity and reducing the pressure that it
causes.

Although other forms of arthritis may be causing your pains, if no
conventional cause is found, they may be due to MPD. Talk to your
doctor about it if you have bone or joint pains. Also, consider gout
which produces very acute arthritis involving only one joint. Hope
this helps. Dr. Gilbert

\\\\ To post or reply, email to: MPDSU...@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG ////