@stsimons Hi Jim, From what you just shared, this is all very encouraging for your wife! She’s obviously responded really well to the treatments as shown with those clean biopsies. That’s awesome! The side-effects…not so much. Sorry to hear that. But really, it sounds like her doctors have found a sweet spot of balancing her meds where she can go periods without any treatment and still remain in remission.
With what I’ve learned along the way, those mini-vacations from drugs can be very helpful in recovery of bone marrow, organs and such that take hits with the chemo.

But with AML, depending on the underlying mutations driving the disease, some of those mutations are more aggressive than others. They’re the problem makers. While the bulk of the cancer cells have been eliminated with chemo, it’s not necessarily all of them. Some of these cells can actually go dormant during treatment or continue to elude the chemo, only to emerge months later. So, even though there is remission, some patients may require periodic lifelong maintenance therapy. Years ago, we patients usually over the age of 65 didn’t have that opportunity. AML was pretty much a life ender. The drugs we have now have been a huge blessing to leukemia patients!

I understand what you’re saying about dandelion root tea…if your wife already drinks tea, why not the dandelion root tea? I just want to share a personal story with you about herbal teas. They’re not without side effects. Earlier this winter, I was given a gift of Ginger tea from a specialty tea company. It’s so delicious! I started drinking two cups a day because it tasted so good, soothing and I felt great.
At the same time, an odd symptom I’d never experienced before started happening gradually. If I stood quickly, I felt like passing out! My ears would roar, I got dizzy and disoriented and one time fell into my husband. That was so unnerving. I’m an avid walker, often at least 7 mile daily. Quite abruptly I was no longer able to keep that pace!
Also, if I stopped to talk with someone or bent to pick up a seashell, I’d get whoozy, lightheaded and I could feel a blackout coming! I had other issues too. I lost motility with my intestines…nothing was moving. Which is rare. My diet didn’t change and I’m regular as a clock. Also, my legs felt like they were weighted. I started wearing compression socks that I use for travel. Even getting out of bed was becoming alarming. So I sat and reviewed any changes I made in the past month before my symptoms started. The ONLY thing that changed was my addition of 2 cups of strong ginger tea.

I did some sleuthing to learn more about Ginger tea. I already knew that it was a wonderful anti-oxidant and a blood thinner, but it is also a vasodilator which helps with blood flow by relaxing and widening blood vessels. Well, in my case, my body did not tolerate the excessive vessel relaxing and my BP dropped dangerously low. So I stopped the tea and within 3 days all of those symptoms disappeared with it!
I’m only letting you know that these herbal teas are not without potential side effects. When I was on chemo, my doctor gave explicit directions to avoid turmeric, ginger and a few other strong herbs and spices to avoid potential liver, kidney and bleeding complications. I’m 7 years past all of that but learned a lesson that nothing is without risk.

That’s why I think it would be a good idea to run the Dandelion root tea past your wife’s hematology team.