WOULDNT IT BE GOOD ?

I dont know why, but yesterday I suddenly had the thought how good it would be if someone invented a way of keeping a check on platelet counts at home.....you know how diabetics have a blood sugar meter ??? Our lives would be a lot easier especially those like me who get anxious everytime its getting near time for the next trip to the hospital for a blood check lol....

That would be very helpful. CBC anxiety is stressful. I also feel we could get a better grip on how our counts fluctuate day by day. Probably too expensive to develop and market for ITP.

not to mention that it probably would be to complicated to do. I'm no dummy, but I think it's a process to do the count. I dunno.

That would be great! I'm not sure what's all involved but I get a finger prick at the dr and the count is ready in 5 minutes!!

You only have a finger prick to get your count ????? wow !

I was only ever allowed to have a finger prick if they had trouble getting a vein, can't remember why that was now

This has been discussed a lot on here over the years. Most of the old timers agree that counts that often are not really necessary. If a diabetic has a blood sugar too high or too low, a coma can result pretty quickly. If one of us has a low count, it would be be very unusual for something critical to happen before we could get medical intervention. In most situations, even weekly blood draws can be overkill. Look at your symptoms; that can be a pretty good guide most of the time. If you're obsessing over counts, we can all discuss that here to help you learn to manage that stress. It does get better.

BTW - the analyzers that count the platelets cost thousands. Pretty expensive!

If I do a full CBC, I need a real blood draw. But if it's just for platelets, they prick my finger and squeeze some blood into a small vial. I love that I can get the results so fast. I agree that it wouldn't be necessary to know our counts every time we were curious, but for those who could afford it, I think it might bring piece of mind? Eventually you would probably get sick of it lol, you only have so many fingers to prick!!

I was dreamong of owning my own cbc machine also! It would save so much time. My son with ITP is very active in sports, so he needs regular counts to know what his activity level can be. It gets very old to go to the lab every week. I am tempted to look into it!

I guess at the end of the day everything always comes down to money and costs :huh: I currently see my haematologist about every 2-3 weeks, the day before I have to go to my GPs office and get a blood test which is then sent to the hospital so the results are there when I see the haemo next day. I just get stressed (probably other people wouldnt but I am also currently being treated for depression and anxiety), I dont have great veins for testing blood, then the day I go to the hospital my head is always pounding for fear hes going to tell me my count is down, or admit me straight to hospital ( i think this fear stems from me being admitted and diagnosed so suddenly back in April), even though I can see I have no bruises, no rashes etc. I feel so stupid for stressing like this when I can read so much of people on here living normal lives with counts going up and down all the time....I get angry with myself

Don't be so hard on yourself. Feelings are feelings. I am always fearful of getting a CBC and the results. I sit in the doctors waiting room and am very anxious. I talk to myself and say to myself... I can't control my platelet count and hope for the best. It is not easy to deal with ITP and the up and down responses to treatments.

I've often thought about how convenient a "Platelet meter" would be, expecialy if you have chronically low counts (i.e. 20k). But, having a standing order at the Blood Lab is the next best thing. That's what I have arranged so I don't have to go to my Dr. every time I want to have my counts checked.

I think it hurts more to get your finger pricked than to have a vial taken from your arm and thats saying something coming from a needle phobe. I go to the room they take the blood, it goes straight up & thru the shoot to the lab and within 15 minutes the results on on the heama's computer.
Julia

Now who is it here who calls the finger prick the finger slice? That's the way it seems to me and I'd hate it. I'm with Julia, I get blood taken and get the full blood count result in a few minutes.

They have that shoot at the Royal London, it goes miles round the hospital, but the once they used it with my blood it seemed to get lost.. LOL.. it took longer to arrive than if they'd walked it so now they take it to the lab themselves and come back with the result. It makes me laugh as the nurse trots off with it all the way across the hospital while I make myself a cup of tea and sit and watch telly or chat to the other ITPers if they are there.

Being a diabetic, using the blood glucose meter and pricking yourself is something you get used to. If I am in hospital they check my blood sugars 3 times a day before meals. I have to think which finger was used last time.
If I see my haemo I have my bloods done just before my appointment. Or like today had my bloods done at home and I phone the haemos secretary the same day to get my platelet count.
I also use an oximeter (stick my finger in) to test the oxygen level in my blood.

One day there will be a meter to test the blood for all sorts.

I'd have thought that taking blood for a glucose test is different. You only need a smear on a card for that. A platelet count has to be actually counting the platelets in a drop of blood so it has to be a bigger drop. That's what it seems to me anyway.

julia wrote:

I think it hurts more to get your finger pricked than to have a vial taken from your arm and thats saying something coming from a needle phobe. I go to the room they take the blood, it goes straight up & thru the shoot to the lab and within 15 minutes the results on on the heama's computer.
Julia

I agree, It does hurt more for a finger prick and usually a lot longer after it has been done too. My dad has one of those blood sugar machines to test his sugar at home and i won't even let him prick my finger to test mine. The blood test i had to today, it hurt slightly when it went in and slightly when it went out and nothing more after. I do agree it is easier for finger pricks if your dehydrated and they can't find a vein though.

If there had been a home test early in my kid's ITP ordeal, she'd have felt like a pin cushion and her count would have dropped from all the blood loss, because I'd have checked her every three hours. Good thing it didn't and doesn't exist. The smother mothers like me would overuse it.
Norma

I would buy one.

Medicine is becoming much more personal and mail home kits are all the rage. You can buy blood type kits, genome screen, STD kits, and all sorts of interesting things.

I am not fond on relying on the Dr for several reasons. I feel guilty for going in just for a blood check. It costs a lot of money. It uses up insurance. And my blood has a tendency to clump and cause fake ITP when it hits the EDTA. If I had a way to bypass that alone it would decrease stress.

I dont think I would get one. Its faster for me to just go to the dr office and get my blood drawn. Once the MA draws my blood they take it and run it themselves and about 5 mins later I have a print out of my CBC, my chemistries take longer and I get those a few days later.

When I was first diagnosed with ITP, my insurance would only pay for a CBC if it was sent out to a private lab. The results took days. I learned to be very patient and forget about the counts until results came in. If I didn't, I'd have gone crazy.

After a while though, I got clumping all the time and the results were always inconclusive. My insurance ended up allowing instant counts at my doctors office. I wait two minutes.

I'm one who really didn't want to know what the count was. If I went one week and it was 50k, I'd just pretend it stayed that way until I got the next count. Mind games.