looooowwwwwww platelets

[patti]

I’ve been watching mom’s blood pressure this week and saw this huge (almost 20pt) change. She started having pretty difficult heart and lung symptoms so we went in a week early to have her blood checked. She was very low and her blood pressure was rising rapidly. But the shock was her platelets were below 10k for the first time ever. They were 9000. Mom’s doc said she is probably leaking pretty quick internally (in her gut) and her body just can’t keep up with it. Does that sound right? She doesn’t have any signs of internal bleeding in her bowel (which you’d think would happen). The doctor is surmising that the platelet drop caused her insides to bleed more causing a quicker drop in her blood counts. As soon as she had two units of blood she was back to normal pressure and her heart felt better. But not her lungs. The doctor also thought she might have some congestive heart failure/fluid on the lungs. For the first time we are having to deal with platelet issues. They didn’t give her platelets today because she didn’t have any petichiae on the skin. I guess that’s why I’m having a hard time understanding internal bleeding happening. Any insight?

Dee, how are your platlets doing? Any better?

Thanks,

patti

[lucym]

Hi Patty
My Mom has very low plts. While in the hospital in Jan they dropped as low as 3000 even with plt tx everyday. We could not get her above 10. She came out of the hospital and they were still below 10. She was eating the pineapple and they jumped from 6 to 15 to 25, but they were back down to 12 this week so she had a plt tx for the first time in 10 days. Even when they are below 10 she does not show much signs sometimes just a slight nose bleed, but it stops bleeding quickly. The doctor gave her the Nup and Procrit shots this week and a prescription for Prednisone. I would have your Mom eat pineapple daily. It does seem to help. Good thoughts for you guys.
Lucy

[patti]

Hi Lucy,

Mom does eat the pineapple and black sesame seeds daily. However, she had cut back to 1/4 of a pineapple without telling me!! I told her to go back to a whole pineapple asap. I guess I just thought that if someone was bleeding internally enough to lower the counts as fast as mom did that they would at least have some external signs of that. Usually mom would even get some petichiae which she dropped below 12. That’s why I’m a little confused at the doctor saying she is bleeding internally faster than she was before. Does prednisone help platlets?

Thanks Lucy.

patti

[Neil]

Hi Patti,
Did they count the plts manually? The equipment used to measure plts is not all that accurate, particulaely when counts are low. Takes a few CBCs to develop consistency. Have seen docs attribute low plts to an unidentified bleed only to find out they were not as low as indicated.
There is only a teaspoon full of plts in the average body. Sometimes they are not always distributed.
In any event the prednisone should give them a bump.

[patti]

Hi Neil,

They didn’t count mom’s plts manually. I was right there so I know they didn’t. That would probably explain why no outward signs of bleeding. They are probably above 12k. Which brings me to why her counts are dropping so fast all of a sudden. We’ve gone from 4 weeks between transfusions down to 3 weeks. I think I felt better assuming that was from platelets. Mom’s not on prednisone but Lucy mentioned it and I was curious about it. I thought there were so many side effects of steroids that taking them was not good. If mom gets too low in plts though I will ask about it and see what they say.

Thanks for the input.

patti

[Jim]

Patti,
I was recently on a heavy dose of Prednisone (60 mg/day) for three weeks in an attempt to raise my platelet count. The doc thought my body was consuming platelets through the immune system (in my spleen) faster than the marrow was making them. Unfortunately it didn’t work. I had more good reactions than bad during the three weeks. I felt great, no aches and pains, plenty of energy but I couldn’t sleep and was easily agitated. As I understand, major problems can occur when you are on these high dosages for a month or more. In the past, I have been on lower dosages of 10mg/day for months at a time for rheumatoid problems with no reactions.
Hope this helps.
JW

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