Hematomas

What is your experience with a hematoma? Did they appear randomly on different places of your body? Did you have a blood draw or trauma one day and a few days later a hematoma appeared?

Josh (my son who is 9, usual count of 1 or 2) developed a hematoma on his arm. It is about the size of one of the smileys on here ( :dry: ). It does not hurt. It is dark in color. I thought about taking him to the ER, but it is on his arm. I did some research and it sounds like the worst places for a hematoma to develop would be in the head. I have my doubts only because it looks like a clot...I guess that's what it is.

A little history, he had his blood drawn a week ago. I read somwhere that if someone were to have a hematoma on his thumb, for example, it might take a few days to travel to another part of his hand.

Thoughts?

With counts that low, it happens. Typically a blood draw can cause it if that's where it showed up. And yes, it can take a day or two. We avoided this by using high doses of vit. C with Luke when he was at zero. It helps to keep the cell walls strong so they are less likely to bleed. But that small on his arm, I wouldn't worry.

patti

Josh is currently taking 5000mg of Vit C a day right now. He weighs about 100lbs. Do you think I should increase that dose? That little bugger on his arm freaked me out.

Those purple spontaneuous bruises the size of a smiley that you describe are the purpura of the name Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura. They are harmless but of course show that the count is pretty low.

Haematomas don't travel. If you bang your arm, that's where you'll get the bruise. How long it takes to come out depends on the platelet count. My count is low just now so banging my arm has it come out purple immediately, with a higher count it may take a day. It's just bleeding under the skin and depends how fast it is bleeding. In the same way a blood draw will show a haematoma at the site of the draw, if it shows at all. The trick with blood draws is not to press too hard on it afterwards. A hard press will have it bleed under the skin and leave a mess, a light press will encourage the bleeding to stop cleanly.

Be careful with high doses of vitamin C as it will cause diarrhoea, although everyone's tolerance level is different.

We were going to try to put him on 1000mg x his age = 9000mg, but his tolerance was only 6000mg before he had loose stools. I may up it a little bit today and see if his tummy does ok on it.

The trick with Vit. C is to NOT use capsules but use powder put into applesauce or some other tolerable substance. Bowel tolerance is MUCH higher with powder because it absorbs immediately whereas the capsules have to dissolve first. That might seem trivial but if he has ITP, he has gut damage (that's a given), which means dissolving that capsule will take longer which means the vit. C is further into the intestinal system before it actually can hits his blood stream. This causes way more bowel disturbance. We did 2500mg. of powdered vit. C 6 times a day in 3 tbls or so of applesauce and that worked well for our boy. Your son's tolerance level will be different, but the goal is to get cell integrity at whatever dose he can handle. I would recommend using powder (or opening the capsules) as he'll be able to handle more and have better cell integrity. Also, spreading throughout the day is crucial. Minimum 5-6 times is what we aimed for.

patti

Josh is taking chewables and we've begun spreading them out during the day - right now he's at 1000mg every few hours. We will gradually increase to 500mg/hour til he reaches his tolerance level.

patti wrote: if he has ITP, he has gut damage (that's a given),

Just in case others read it and assume that it's the accepted view, I would say that it's not a given, it's just your opinion.

Disease doesn't happen unless a person's immune system is not functioning correctly. If 70-80% of the immune system is in the gut (as is known and shown in plenty of medical studies - use google if you need to) then it stands correct that there is gut damage (immune system damage) when one has a disease. Putting it in VERY simplistic form.

Ann, it is an accepted view. Maybe not by you. Every ND we've seen in 8yrs practices that. But by all means, you treat your gut however you want to. I'm not standing in your way.

I've asked about that gut statistic before - is it by volume? By weight? By impact on immune processes? I did google it and did not find reliable information to support the statistic.

It does seem like sometimes gut problems can make immune problems worse. And some gut problems ARE immune problems. Guts are part of the wetware we call home.
Erica

Thank you all for your insight. I'm still very new to this concept of ITP and it being an immune problem.

The thing that confirmed Josh's ITP as being part of an immune problem is that his IgA levels were at 56. Josh's doc (we'll call her an ID - integrative doctor, because she is not 100% ND. She's as close as we get.) says that normal levels for an immune system range between a score of 74-220. He has a bum immune system. We're currently working on getting him up to 200.

What triggered it? I firmly believe that it was due to him receiving the Flumist and becoming ill shortly after. ITP ensued. The immunization/vaccination triggered something to go wary in his immune system. I spoke with a chiropractor friend of mine (we attended HS together YEARS ago) who also practices natural methods said that "idiopathic" is another way of saying "medically induced."

So these are some of the reasons we are choosing a natural approach.

eklein wrote: I've asked about that gut statistic before - is it by volume? By weight? By impact on immune processes? I did google it and did not find reliable information to support the statistic.

It does seem like sometimes gut problems can make immune problems worse. And some gut problems ARE immune problems. Guts are part of the wetware we call home.
Erica

Awhile back (I can't remember how far), there was some discussion in a thread on this and I posted several links that discussed immune function/cells in the gut.

patti wrote: Ann, it is an accepted view. Maybe not by you. But this IS the natural forum

It isn't the natural forum, it's the parents' forum. If it had been the natural forum I wouldn't have commented.

Ann wrote:

patti wrote: Ann, it is an accepted view. Maybe not by you. But this IS the natural forum

It isn't the natural forum, it's the parents' forum. If it had been the natural forum I wouldn't have commented.

I so rarely post on this forum I forgot where I was. I have corrected my original post and apologize profusely (I mean that sincerely).

Well, Josh is at zero today. He started getting a cold two days ago, and I don't know if this is what is contributing to a lower count. It's disappointing, scary, frustrating...

No new hematomas, though. No bleeds. Petechiae not out of the ordinary. He's sitting on the couch playing the Wii today.

Did you start h-pathy with him? The couch is what we did with our platelet boy too.

He's been getting 500mg of Vit C every hour. He is still on a high vitamin regiment 3x daily. We're "trying" to be careful of his diet, but it's SO difficult with family in town for the holidays!

Patti, I keep going back to your posts to see what you did with your platelet boy.