Maybe ITP

So... Hi there, I'm Camila, I'm from South america, Chile.
Sorry about my English I might make some mistakes 'cause my native language is spanish.

I found this website awesome, because in spanish there's little information about ITP, just the basics so that's why I joined here.

I'm in the process of being diagnosed. My platet count in march was 75.000 and the MD said it was ok because I just had the flu but that in 3 or 4 months I should get another blood test and now is 50.000, I'm easily bruised and I have had some purple/red marks that appeard out of nothing, I bleed a lot in my gumps when I brush my teeth and lately I've been extremely tired.

Tomorrow I have my appointment to the hematologist so she might confirm that I have ITP or if I have something different. I have to bring her all the blood test of different things like hep B or hep C (which are negative) and I'm curious because my liver test came out a tiny bit weird and because I'm not an MD I don't get what could be and I don't know if it's related with ITP

So my question for you guys is, have any of you had your liver test a bit weird?

Hi Camila! Your English is just fine.

First of all, your counts are still pretty good. You are in a safe range. "Safe" is anything above 20,000 or 30,000. Hopefully you will stay there and not have to have any treatments. If you do drop and need treated though, there are many things to try and we can all help you with that.

ITP can be triggered by so may things, the flu being one of them. Sometimes though, when the illness ends, ITP does not. There is still hope that your counts will rebound eventually.

As for the liver, this is what I know: ITP itself does not have anything to do with how the liver functions and labs for the liver should not show anything abnormal because of ITP. However, problems with the liver can cause low platelets which would then not be considered ITP. There are a lot of reasons that liver labs can be abnormal, and if it's just a little bit weird then it's probably nothing to worry about. You'd have to ask your doctor if further testing is required for that.

Good luck with your appointment and let us know how it goes!

Sandi wrote: Hi Camila! Your English is just fine.

First of all, your counts are still pretty good. You are in a safe range. "Safe" is anything above 20,000 or 30,000. Hopefully you will stay there and not have to have any treatments. If you do drop and need treated though, there are many things to try and we can all help you with that.

ITP can be triggered by so may things, the flu being one of them. Sometimes though, when the illness ends, ITP does not. There is still hope that your counts will rebound eventually.

As for the liver, this is what I know: ITP itself does not have anything to do with how the liver functions and labs for the liver should not show anything abnormal because of ITP. However, problems with the liver can cause low platelets which would then not be considered ITP. There are a lot of reasons that liver labs can be abnormal, and if it's just a little bit weird then it's probably nothing to worry about. You'd have to ask your doctor if further testing is required for that.

Good luck with your appointment and let us know how it goes!

Thanks for answering Sandi.
I hope it goes well, my ANA test was positive at 1/640, so it might be lupus or something else :S, I'm sure tomorrow will be clarifying and probably will do tons of other test!

I'll post what my MD says, keeping my finger crossed

Do you have any Lupus symptoms? Lupus can take a long time to develop enough for a diagnosis, so you might not know the answer to that for a long time. ITP and an elevated ANA are only two of the diagnostic criteria. Good luck!

hi Camilla, i also had some not very good liver values for a while but last week they were back normal again.

Welcome, Camilla.
Hope your Platelets rebound on their own without any treatment!! If you do need treatment, there is alot of helpful people/info here.
I have had elevated ALT and AST liver enzymes, which is not ITP related.

The hematologist send me to do some more labs like ferritine, TSH, Reticulocyte counts, ENA because my ANA was too high (1/640) and a rheumatoid factor among others.

So I'm still waiting and it looks like I will have to wait some more but it's ok. My count is still 50.000 and she said I don't have to worry unless they are under 30.000 and that I currently don't need treatment.

Sandi: She said that with further test she will tell me if I had to go back to her practice or I need to change to a rheumatologist because she said she was concerned about lupus because of some signs like the redness in my cheeks, or rashes when I'm exposed to the sun, things that I have had my whole life though and a little pain in my fingers.

Thank you all for your kind words!

Good luck, Camilia. If you do need a Rheumatologist, you should still probably see the Hemo because Rheumatoogists don't deal with ITP. I hope you end up with good news on that end. Sometimes a Lupus diagnosis can take years though because it can take a long time to develop enough criteria for a diagnosis. You do have a few of the criteria and further testing will tell more. Let us know!

So... Finally I got time to do the tests and today I got the results.

My count now is 49.000, just 1000 lower than two weeks ago. That's good. Still super tired though.
Ferritin is normal, ENA was negative (They asked for it cause ANA was positive) Rheumatoid factor was negative.

Everything else was normal (I'm guessing) I still need the hematologist to look at them!

So... now I'm waiting what the hematologist says