maybe why head colds can make platelets plummet

Here's an interesting article in the NY Times that basically says all the symptoms of a head cold result from a very active immune system. I've noticed with my ITP daughter that her counts can go from 350K to 10K-50K within 4 days of starting a head cold.

www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/opinion/05ackerman.html


"Here was a new insight in cold science: the symptoms are caused not by the virus but by its host — by the body’s inflammatory response. Chemical agents manufactured by our immune system inflame our cells and tissues, causing our nose to run and our throat to swell. The enemy is us.

Indeed, it’s possible to create the full storm of cold symptoms with no cold virus at all, but only a potent cocktail of the so-called inflammatory mediators that the body makes itself — among them, cytokines, kinins, prostaglandins and interleukins, powerful little chemical messengers that cause the blood vessels in the nose to dilate and leak, stimulate the secretion of mucus, activate sneeze and cough reflexes and set off pain in our nerve fibers.

So susceptibility to cold symptoms is not a sign of a weakened immune system, but quite the opposite. And if you’re looking to quell those symptoms, strengthening your immune system may be counterproductive. It could aggravate the symptoms by amplifying the very inflammatory agents that cause them."

Interesting! When I was a child with ITP any kind of infection would put my counts in the toilet. I can remember in grade 1, a boy in my class came down with Chicken Pox and my doctor pulled me out of school for two or three weeks to make sure no one else in the class was incubating it and would pass it along to me! However, now a cold/flu will give my platelets a boost. Does anyone have any ideas as to why different people have different reactions, or why one person's body will change it's reaction, to an infection?

^in a very general sense i think our immune system attacks the bacteria instead of our platelets when something is present. Our platelets get a time out while the b cells attack something else.

Athos, my experiences align with your view. When I am sick, my platelets never drop, but they often go up some.

I've seen both sides. Typically, I see a rise when I'm sick and a drop with I take antibiotics, but recently I dropped with a head cold. I've gone with Atho's theory when I rise.

I can relate to the article, since I also see a difference in how I feel in terms of exhastion/energy levels when I reduce the overall allergin load that can be triggering the autoimmune system. Staying inside and using the air conditioner with the air filter when my seasonal allergies are running high, avoiding the foods I know I'm allergic to, etc.