Hello! Newly diagnosed and looking around!

Hello everyone,

I have been poking around on here over the past few weeks so I figured I would say hi and introduce myself.

I am 31 years old and have recently been diagnosed with chronic ITP.

During a pregnancy 3 years ago, during routine blood work it was noted that my platelets were below normal. While its common for platelets to drop a little during pregnancy, for them to be below 150,000 isn't really. My midwife monitored them and they came down to 100,000 when I was in labour but never below. Not one seemed concerned. I continued on with my life without a care about my platelets.

Next pregnancy the same thing was caught in routine blood work. Only this time things got a little bit worse. During labour my platelets slipped down to 68,000 - I was refused the epidural (but that's a while other story lol!). Follow up blood work showed that my platelets were increasing post partum, but still not back to normal. I was told that by 6 weeks post-partum they should have recovered if it was just pregnancy related. I am now 8 months post-partum and my platelets have been holding steady around 120,000 to 130,000 for the past 4 months.

My hematologist is obviously not concerned, and I go back to see her in a years time. I know that 120k-130k is a good count. And I consider myself to be lucky that I do not need to worry about any complications at this time.

I do worry about them dropping in the future though. Or complications arising with surgeries or future pregnancies (If ever I am pregnant again).

I have been doing some research just to find out more information about ITP. I find there is a lot of conflicting information on the internet.

So that is my story. I find this site to be very helpful and reading the posts of others going through this is comforting.

One question I have is if anyone has seen a Naturopathic Doctor for their ITP and what their experiences with them was like? It is something I am considering. I figured it doesn't hurt to try. I know my platelets are not very low, but at the same time they are not normal. I would be interested in seeing if they could guide me to bring them up.

Leena:

Although the reference ranges on blood work show 150 as 'normal' and most of the literature states that too, the ITP Guidelines state that ITP is diagnosed at constant counts under 100. Your labs are really quite good and are not anything to worry about at this point.

Your counts could drop with another pregnancy, but you seemed to do pretty well for the first two, so there's no reason to think that might change. If it does, you'll deal with it then. I disagree about counts going back to normal within 6 weeks after delivery. It could take up to six months. Hormones fluctuate a lot after a pregnancy and are not back to normal quite that fast.

Thank you for your reply Sandi!
You are right, my platelets are nothing to worry about. And I know that they seem like nothing compared to what others are dealing with.

I am pretty novice with all of this information, so its nice to get others inputs. The 2 pregnancies I mentioned about were #2 and #3. I have one other older child. My first pregnancy I did not have any issue with my platelets. They were absolutely normal the whole time. It wasn't until the second pregnancy they dropped, and they never fully recovered after that.

I would like to not have ITP - so maybe, just maybe they will continue to slowly increase and I will never have to deal with actual ITP. From what I have read there are so many things that could affect platelet counts. So maybe a tiny little tweak in my lifestyle could make a difference. Worth looking it a bit anyway, I think

I think everyone here would rather not have ITP, so you're right on with that thinking! Any lifestyle change for the better is good on the long run, so trying won't hurt. There is no one thing that works for everyone, so the challenge is finding what may work for you.