First time posting

Hi my 16 year old godson, Nick, was diagnosed 2 years ago with ITP. At first we thought it was caused by psychotropic medecines that they had him on in the past. However we immediately stopped all of those and he still has ITP. So, now we realize it is chronic. He was responding well to IVIG, but now his platelets only stay up for 2-3 weeks after each IVIG. Two weeks ago they did 3 courses of IVIG and his platelets rose to 214 - the highest they have ever been. But last week they were down to 60. We will get them checked again tomorrow. He has also been on prednisone which helped for a while but the side effects were awful. We also tried rituximab and he did not respond at all. Hi doctor is encouraging us to get a splenectomy. My gut tells me this is a bad idea. I read in your posts about cellcept which I had never heard of before, and also about the vitaminomniplus and also about papaya leaf extract. I think we need to try more remedies before taking out his spleen which will be forever. I was wondering abotu getting a second opinion if his hematologist doesn't agree. I would appreciate any comments or thought, Thank you!

Everyone's ITP journey is different, what will work for one, may not for another. There are some published Treatment Guidelines . There is also great information on this sites Treaments page

While IVIG does a great job raising counts, it typically only holds for a few days to weeks. With something as non-reversible as a spleenectomy, a second opinion may help you weight the options. Cellcept is not a first line treatment, it's explored after trying some of the others. While a few people benefit from diet changes (see the personal stories), most of us don't see platelet changes, although reducing the allergin load can't hurt and may improve overall health and spirits.

I would consider N-Plate or Promacta before CellCept or splenectomy at this point. CellCept can take a while to work and doesn't always raise counts.