Watchful Waiting

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If you aren't comfortable watching and waiting then you shouldn't do it. If you want to treat ask the haematologist what options you have for treatments. IVIG is only temporary and won't work for very long. You might want to consider some other more long term treatment. If you can't speak up for yourself is there somebody you can take who can speak up for you? A parent or friend perhaps?

Hi,

it is almost two years (more precisely 21 months) that I am in watchful waiting. My count has been around 30, but sometimes 15 (once or twice). I definitely prefer watchful waiting to steroids. Your count seems to be ok for watchful waiting, but I guess that you should check the platelets level frequently, I would say every one or two weeks, especially at the beginning (you were diagnosed recently, right?) until you understand how stable they are. I am not a doctor, others in this forum can agree or disagree with me. Sandi has a lot of experience, I guess she'll reply soon.

If you start having more symptoms or really feel uncomfortable with low counts you should tell your doctor. I guess that he/she will agree with starting a treatment, but you should be aware that in ITP the treatment is sometimes worse than the disease (nasty side effects).

By the way: a count of 9 or 12 it is really not different. There is always an error margin and the amount of platelets can fluctuate a lot during the same day. You can think that both of them as being around 10.

I hope this helps.
Carl

Everyone has different comfort levels and you have to do what is best for you. I will point out though that most of the treatments have side effects, so the anxiety might persist no matter what you choose to do. Some people become anxious while they are treating if they experience a side effect and don't know if it is normal or not.

It might help if you tried to figure out what is scaring you and deal with that.