what kind of counts do you see on prednisone?

I was sent to hemo at count of 45 started pred last week with count of 74 have been on pred for week and count is 160 just wondering if everyone sees an increase and if I taper am I gonna fall

Hi Chels,

the response to Predni can vary strongly.

My count once went from 0 to 300+ in under a week. It dropped back to 150 at the end of 20 weeks of tampering.

This strong boost of predni may work for you well. This means if you are lucky it might bring the count back into normal range and you'll forget about this community soon.

It can also happen that the drop falls parallel to the tampering and that you stay a regular member of the ITP crowd. There is little known about the disease and its curses.

I wish that you can forget about it soon!!!
Even if not, you'll get used to it and have a normal life with ITP.

Good luck
Joerg

Thank Joerg,

I read that only about 10-30% of people counts actually stay up when they start to taper. I am not liking the pred so I wanna taper. so if my counts start to fall what is the next option they offer after the pred?

Well, yes chances are that it falls if you tamper, but (I'm no doctor I can only give my opinion and what I've learned from my hemo) using predni usually has a higher success rate if you use it the first time.
So the 10 to 30% might include re-runs of predni.

In my case predni worked for me the first time. I took it for a little more than 20 weeks.
The tampering schedule usually is that you reduce substantially at first an in smaller steps later.
E.g. 100, 60, 40, 30, 25, 20, 17.5, 16, 15,14,...
At the beginning I thought I'll go nuts. I hard a heartbeat of 100 beats per minute, etc.
I got used to it a little better after I while and with loser dose the symptoms become easier.

After taking predni and tampering for the first time I stayed within ok counts for over a year.

When the counts dropped again my doc tried predni again and the counts went up quickly. This time they fell while tampering. So predni did not work the second time I took it.

I switched to Nplate which works fine for me. But predni is usually the first lines of defense for ITP. I doubt your hemo will try anything else before he has not seen that predni does not work.

The bright side in your response to predni is that it proves you have ITP. Why is that good? Because other diseases that can cause low counts are far worse than ITP.

Starting a treatment with 74 and when the count is already going up seems a bit unusual to me too. So you might want to take Sandis advice and get a second opinion.

good luck
Joerg

Thank you Joerg!!! I will def b asking questions tomorrow I have a note pad!!!! If he still seems like he is unsure I will b getting a second opinion. I thought that this was his way of checking to see if it was itp. Hopefully this is the only time I will have to use treatment!!! I am hoping for remission if that what u call it.

Chels:

Responses vary from person to person and can even change in time with each individual. A person can get a great lasting response one time and the next time, they might only get a short response that doesn't last.

I'd still get the second opinion no matter what he says the next time you see him. Doing Prednisone may have put you on a treatment roller coaster that you can't get off of for a while. I hope that is not the case. You know that old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"? That applies here. I've never heard of anyone placed on Prednisone with a count of 74 just to possibly show that they do have ITP. It's not a reliable diagnostic method and the side effects can be worse than the problem was in the first place.

If your counts do drop again after this taper, a high dose of Prednisone (again) with a longer taper might be the next step. The other treatments can be much more toxic and a bit much for someone who had mild ITP to start with, especially since you do respond to Prednisone. Over-treating ITP can be a big mistake since some side effects can be permanent over time.

I hope this turns out to be acute for you, only time will tell.