Drug Induced ITP

My husband has been recently diagnosed with ITP. Since I've known him as a teenager (30 yrs ago), he has always bruised easy and has had the red spots when working with weights or heavy lifting. His count now is around 20. Things got worse the last few years at the same time he started taking meds for diabetes and for acid reflux. A naturalpath told him that the meds might be the cause. I researched this a bit on the internet last night and both medications have a "rare" side effect of excessive bleeding and bruising. The meds he is on is diamicron and pantaprozole.

Has anyone had discovered thier ITP was drug induced?

When I was first diagnosed, I was taken off all my meds to see if that was causing my ITP. After several days of no changes, I went back on them. I too am on Pantoprazole, (I call it Pantaloc), have been for a long time.

Has your husband's doctor suggested going off his meds to see if this is the cause?

Welcome to the "family".

No his doctor did not suggest he going off his meds. He has an appointment in March and he will ask him then.

Are you taking prednizone? Since my husband is diabetic, if he goes on prednizone, he will have to take insulin injections instead of meds as this steroids all but stop the production of insulin. We'd like to avoid that!

Thanks!

The problem is that thrombocytopenia can be a side effect of almost every drug there is. Stopping the drug may not fix the ITP; sometimes it is a chain reaction of cell changes that does not rectify itself. All you can do, if possible, is stop one drug at a time for a few weeks and see what happens (with the doctors guidance).

Most of us don't know what caused our ITP. Trying to pin it on a drug that you've taken for a while is difficult to prove, so the actual cause is usually unknown. Some drugs also thin the blood so an increase in bruising or petechiae could be due to that, not a low platelet count.

Has your husband ever had a platelet count all those years? Petechiae could be common for someone who is straining (as in weight lifting). My husband choked one day and had petechiae worse than I ever did, and my lowest count was 3 (he does not have ITP).

There are treatments other than Prednisone which hopefully, his doctor will discuss with you.

No, I finally got off the pred in Dec. of last year. I had been on it since /04.

I know that stopping meds might not stop the ITP. It was just something my doctor did at the time. It didn't make any difference for me.