Wondering about cause

Hi to everyone! I'm back. I was a regular here from April 2007 till the middle of 2009.Boy, have things changed here. I had to register all over again and I'm having some problems navigating the site, so please excuse my mistakes.

To get to my question. When I was dx'd with ITP in Jan. 07, I was ask many questions about meds I was taking, illnesses, etc. I mentioned to the doctor that although I had no changes in anything I was doing that I had been under extreme stress at work and at home for several months. He said stress had nothing to do with the disorder. I also mentioned that when I was putting some Frontline (flea med) on my dog approx. a week before that she had jumped up in my face and that the frontline had gotten in my mouth. He dismissed this as a cause also.

My plt count was 21,000 when dx'd. I took Preds which made me crazy and althought they got my plts up slowly, had no lasting effect on my platelets. My platelets remained from 80 to 100 after getting rituxin infusions in May of 2007. Until NOW.

I'll try to make this short. I allowed my son and his wife to move in with me about a year ago and for the last 6 months the stress has been tremendous. Thursday it got so bad I had to have them removed from my home after an allful incident. my plts were 89 last week and Wednesday I had no bruising or petichiae. By lunchtime Thursday I noted bruising and petichiae on my arms andlegs. I woke up Friday with active bleeding from my mouth and nose and was covered with bruising and petichiae. I went to the doctors office and was placed on 100mg daily of preds. My count was 1,000.

After my mind settled, I also remembered that last Sunday I was going to put frontline on my dog and I burst the container trying to get it out of the packing. It got all over both my hands and even after washing them, they still felt numb and tingly. I have since researched frontline and other on spot flea meds and they are very toxic, carcenogens, and in tests in Europe have been found to cause a myriad of health problems in pets and humans. It has been banned in France.

My questions are do any of you use this stuff on your pets and do any of you think that the frontline or the extreme stress could be the reason for my plts bottoming out?

Hi Deb, I use Frontline on my 5 cats and 2 dogs. Ive never had any problems with it but do remember a similar product being banned over here a few yr ago.
I think it sounds more likely to be the extreme stress that has caused this recent drop.
We had neighbours from hell for 3&half yr until last yr. I didn't have ITP before they turned up or a lot of stress. It got to the point where we couldn't sleep or even go into the sitting room-we just about lived in the conservetory through the summers and the winters.
Take it easy and try and have a peaceful home it does help!

Julia

Anything is possible. There are others here that question toxins etc for starting their ITP. For me it was either an Iguana bite or the Tetanus shot right after. There is literature that supports this.

www.pdsa.org/about-itp/causes.html

How I understand this is from thinking about how this diagnosis initially became noticed with pregnant women and their babies having a different RH factor. They can have a severe reaction from this difference entering their bloodstream and it effects their platelets in the same way as ITP. How I see this is that when something foreign enters the bloodstream it is up to our bodies defence system, immune system, to react and fight it, sometimes we may have an error, or some glitch that causes an overreaction.

Stress will never be a good thing when it comes to our health. I found mine would spike innitially and them lower if I was living with additional stress. Glad you got your place back.

Hope you feel better soon.

Seeking the cause is always so chicken verus egg. What came first? A few of us are lucky enough to know triggers others not. About a month ago, I ran into another ITP patient in my doctors office (she sees one of the other doctors in the office). We had 30 minutes to chat in the waiting room. Her major drops were clearly associated with major life event stress (lenghty terminal illness and death of a close family member, husband's heart attack, etc). I hope you see a quick bounce back and can reduce the pred quickly as well as speedy and healthy resolution to your family issues.