I am inquiring for my husband who will be 75 in October. He has a preliminary diagnosis of Myelodysplastic Syndrome. Comprehensive test results will be in at the end of the week For several weeks he has had a nagging cough, for which he is taking prescription cough medicine and he has been given, as a precautionary measure, two rounds of Antibiotic. He has random bouts with chills that make him shake for about 10 to 20 minutes. These generally occur at night, however he just had one at 11:00 A.M. His temp is normal when the shakes begin, but just after the shakes/chills end his temperature begins to rise slowly as does his blood pressure (190/100 this morning responded to Metroprolol by 1:42 and was 121/69 with a HR of 90). Fever spike has been as low as 99 and as high as 103.4. It generaly responds to fever reducer like Tylenol and goes back down sometimes to 97.6. After the fever goes down (not before) he goes into a sweat. This process sometimes happens once a day or can skip a day or two, but it always recurs. This has been going on for almost 4 weeks now. Accompanied by weakness and pain in both hips and lower back. (he has had 1 hip and two knees replaced). X-rays always show clear, Urinalysis shows no infection. Blood work and bone marrow testing point toward MDS. Other information that might be helpful is that he has been treated for the last five years for Essential Thrombocytosis with the drug Hydroxy Urea, He has stints for some of his arteries and takes blood pressure med). Has been on a special diet for that also. But another thing is that before he got as weak as he is now, The outside of our house that is probably 60 years old was being scraped and repainted. He used the blower to help clean up the paint chips.
We are wondering if the symptoms can be caused by the MDS, or if we should look at other diseases. He has been told that his white blood cells are so low (between 1.5 and 2.7) that getting an infection could be fatal., so we don't want to overlook anything that could put him at greater risk.

Do you have any suggestions as to whether we should be searching for another disease, or are the symptoms he is having are typical of MDS?.

Thank you for your help.