Hi everyone,
I hope you don't mind that I also posted this on the treatment board and general board, so if you see it more than once, feel free to ignore it. My question sort of touches on a few different topics so I wanted to get people's input from various boards.
I haven't posted on here in ages since I was first diagnosed with ITP about three years ago. I've been really fortunate in my ITP journey with my counts generally ranging from 50-80 and I have never had any symptoms so my hematologist has never thought that I needed to be treated. I just had labs done today and my count was 55. A month ago it was 61 and 2 months before that it was 63, so it has gone down a bit but not that much.
Well, now I am pregnant (33 weeks tomorrow!) and I am very grateful that my ITP has not been a problem during my pregnancy thus far. That being said, I am getting closer to my due date so we are looking at starting treatment soon to get my platelet up closer to delivery. My hematologist says that a count of 50 or above is safe as far as he is concerned, as long as I stay asymptomatic, but the anesthesiologists at the hospital where I am delivering require 80-100 for an epidural or spinal anesthesia, depending on which doctor is on call (some will do it with 80, others require 100). So, we are going to start treating soon to try to get my count up so that I have the option of an epidural, and more importantly, so that if I end up needing a c-section for any reason, I won't have to go under general anesthesia for it.
So - I'm finally getting to my question here. (Thanks for reading so far already!) If you have been on prednisone, and I know it varies from person to person, how long does it take to start working? And how much did it raise your counts? My next appointment with the hematologist isn't until 3 weeks from now when I will be 36 weeks pregnant and I am nervous that my count won't be high enough by the time I deliver, either because I won't have been on it long enough or because it just won't get my count above 100. What are your thoughts? Thanks in advance everyone, and I'm sorry this is soooo looooong!
Liz
