Something happened to me recently that I thought was worth sharing. The short version of my long story is I have progressed through BRAF inhibitors, then yervoy, and was finally thrilled to be qualified for anti-PD-1 treatments. After 4 infusions, I was feeling like this too was just not working, so thanks to this board's advice, I visted my melanoma specialist who practices several thousand miles away. I'm always trying to stay one-step ahead with a plan B and only see the specialist occationally. The specialist recomended I discontinue Prednisone, get another scan right away, and then another after about the 7th dose and finally determine if it was doing any good. Seemed like a good plan except when I got the results of that first scan soon after my 5th dose of Keytruda, they compared it to the prior scan when I came off Yervoy and because it did show progression, my regular onc said insurance would deny any further treatments and just like that, I have been yanked off Keytruda. Since some would argue that anti-PD-1 takes time to work, I feel a bit cheated out of that opportunity. The other side of that coin is that if I was not a responder, better to find out sooner than later. Of course the real big problem now is there are no other FDA approved treatments, so my only options going forward are trials. Just wanted to send out this warning flag as this series of events really caught me by surprise.
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