Butydoc
Senior Member
- Messages
- 790
A brief time line. I started seeing Dr Montoya in 2007 where I was treated with Valcyte. After 7 months, I quit the drug because it was making me worse. I believe this was a result of starting with too high a dose and never recovered until I stopped the drug. I improved enough to return to work part time, but in 2012 my health started to deteriorate. I saw Montoya who started me on Valcyte and colchicine. He also started me on doxycycline at my request (high titers of m.pneumonia). I improved to function at about 75%. I stopped taking all of these drugs after about 1 1/2 years because of increase liver enzymes and decrease creatinine clearance (a measure of renal function). My numbers returned to normal and I felt fairly well for about 6mo, then again started to deteriorate.
I saw Dr Montoya on Jan 13th, 2015. He still believes that inflammation is an extremely important aspect of CFS/ME. He believes that Valcyte is a potent antiviral and anti inflammatory drug. His new recommendation for me was to start Valcyte as a suppressing dose of 450mg daily which should be acting as an anti inflammatory drug, acyclovir 800mg twice daily as an antiviral drug and celebrex as an anti inflammatory drug. We spoke a bit about the Japanese study that showed brain inflammation. He appeared very excited about the direction of this research. I believe he feels that the anti inflammatory properties of Valcyte may be its major benefit. It has been approximately three weeks since I started this new therapy. I have improved relatively dramatically. I've grained weight and muscle mass, something I haven't been able to do in 11 years. I feel pretty good but not normal. I'm still improving. I might mention, my original test in 2007 showed high Igg titers of EBV, HHV6 and M.pneumonia.
Dr. Montoya now has an assistant whose primary job is to write grants. He expects to get between 10-20 million dollars this year. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to speak with him since he was off to a meeting immediately after my consultation. He was very kind to see me at 8:30am that morning.
Best,
Gary
I saw Dr Montoya on Jan 13th, 2015. He still believes that inflammation is an extremely important aspect of CFS/ME. He believes that Valcyte is a potent antiviral and anti inflammatory drug. His new recommendation for me was to start Valcyte as a suppressing dose of 450mg daily which should be acting as an anti inflammatory drug, acyclovir 800mg twice daily as an antiviral drug and celebrex as an anti inflammatory drug. We spoke a bit about the Japanese study that showed brain inflammation. He appeared very excited about the direction of this research. I believe he feels that the anti inflammatory properties of Valcyte may be its major benefit. It has been approximately three weeks since I started this new therapy. I have improved relatively dramatically. I've grained weight and muscle mass, something I haven't been able to do in 11 years. I feel pretty good but not normal. I'm still improving. I might mention, my original test in 2007 showed high Igg titers of EBV, HHV6 and M.pneumonia.
Dr. Montoya now has an assistant whose primary job is to write grants. He expects to get between 10-20 million dollars this year. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to speak with him since he was off to a meeting immediately after my consultation. He was very kind to see me at 8:30am that morning.
Best,
Gary
