Vitamins K, C and Calcium for Platelets?

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• March 4, 2006 at 4:15 pm #12141
  SandyB

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  Has anyone here tried increasing Vitamins K or C for Blood Platelets? I have also read that Calcium will help with increasing Platelets.

  Mike’s have begun to drop and we want to try and get them back up.

  March 4, 2006 at 5:44 pm #12142
  Neil

  Member

  Hi Sandy,
  There isn’t anything out there that will increase platelets in all patients. My doc prescribed Vitamin B-6. Doubt it helps.
  Also take Vitamin C, but more for resistance to colds/infection.
  Would be very careful with Vitamin K. It helps clotting, but does Mike really want that? Sure, some help with nicks and cuts might be nice, but is it necessary? There are other clots within his blood vessels he certainly does not want that it could produce.
  There are drugs that do help clotting, but again does he really want them? Those with active bleeding issues probably do with a docs care. Those that take them for “just in case” situations run a risk of having unwanted clotting issues.
  If he does not have any bleeding, bruising, petechiae issues, would stick with B-6 and C.
  Some patients claim results with pineapple and black sesame seeds. Did nothing for me. If his cells are cloning and produce quantum amounts of abnormal platelets all the pineapple and black sesame seeds in the world won’t help. It would be necessary to fix that abnormal chromosome that creates the cells that are cloning.
  There is a drug under trial that may provide help in the future. It is Eltrombopag. Not much info available yet, but seems to help those with ITP. Can’t find any data on the impact it may have on MDS.
  He might want to get a couple boxes of Nosebleed QR and/or Urgent QR to help with nosebleeds,nicks and cuts. They are available over the counter.
  Platelet counts do tend to bounce around. The equipment used to measure them is accurate within 15,000 units on counts between 50,000 and 500,000. When counts get lower it takes a series of CBC’s to learn where they really are. There is only a teaspoonfull of platelets in the 5 liters or so of blood in the average body. Kind of tough to find and measure them with a machine. Manual counting is sometimes used to verify very low counts.
  My platelets dropped from the “normal” 10,000 range to 6000-7000 last Oct. Have had a couple spikes to 13,000 over that period, but still no symptoms of low platelets. Considering the accuracy of the equipment, is there a real difference between 10,000 and 6,000? Maybe, maybe not. But a manual count (using the same sample) will verify where they are.

  March 4, 2006 at 7:49 pm #12143
  patti

  Member

  Sandy,

  Vitamin K in and of itself will not increase platelets. It will, as Neil said, help with clotting. Mom does take Vit. K. Large quantities of it. I’m not sure I agree with Neil on the clotting thing. All I can do is tell you what our experience is. Most Vit. K that you find at the store is 100mcg. tablets. We searched long and hard and found 9MG tablets and mom takes it twice daily (one each time). Her platelets have been dropping consistently this past year and she’s now “stable” at 9000. The doctor cannot figure out why she’s not riddled with petichaie and finally came to the conclusion that the vitamin is actually keeping her vessels from popping below the skin, therefore no petichaie. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be doing anything for internal bleeding as she is bleeding out almost as fast as we can put blood in her right now. Both the doctor and the naturapath said that the internal membranes are so much thinner than our 3 layers of skin that it’s not likely the K will help that. And, they are correct. But, at least mom is not covered in petichiae which is distressing in itself. Keep in mind that she normally had petichiae at 12K platelets and we have done more than 5 CBC’s where she’s at right now.

  I guess I would ask a naturapath. Your doctor will poo poo anything natural (at least 99% of them do). I know our naturapath had no concerns about over clotting and was pleased to see mom was taking the K.

  So, there’s two opposing views for ya. Clotting may also make a difference depending on where his platelets are at. I’m not sure I’d take the high doses of K unless the platelets were below 50K. Keeping in mind it takes about 2 weeks to build it up in the body. I hope you’ll be able to find something that works for your husband.

  Best wishes,

  Patti

  March 4, 2006 at 8:16 pm #12144
  Jerry

  Member

  Sandy ….

  Neil recommended Nosebleed QR …. good recommendation … I use it and it does stop most nosebleeds … but, the stuff is expensive … so, I bought a bunch of it online and saved about half the cost … just an idea for you …

  Jerry

  March 5, 2006 at 7:55 am #12145
  diner

  Member

  Sandy,
  I also have a bad platelet problem. I’ve had platelet transfusions which don’t help anymore. My doctor recently put me on Amacar which helps clot my blood. My platelets never get above 3 but my last blood test showed they were 7 and my doctor said it’s because of the Amacar clotting. One never knows what to do for sure, but with my platelets only being 2 or 3, I always worry about a brain bleed so I guess the Amacar might be the answer for now. The pineapple thing didn’t help me but my mouth is still trying to heal from drinking so much of it.
  Dee

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