Kim I have no idea how you manage after about 3 weeks I was ready to scrub my skin off with a brillo pad. How you have managed for years is beyond me.

Im not sure but I think there may be something wrong with my back. Ive noticed after running my left foot goes numb usually for a few hrs. Once I wake up in the morning its better but I know thats not normal. I should bring it up to my dr. Its kinda annoying to be honest with you. I dont run much just the dog in class but every week now my foot is numb like its asleep and will be like that until I wake up in the mroning.

Lol tamar! You are no fresh or junior boarder!

Please someone help me help my grand daughter!!! This past saturday my daughter called me up and she was frantic about her 5 month old daughter who woke up with bruises on her body,(chest, stomach, legs, around her eyes, and one bruise on the inside of her palm.)I really thought my daughter was thinking that my grand daughter has a rash of some sort but she was insisting that it was bruising and still was thinking it was just a rash. I called my other daughter and told her what my other daughter described to me and she said she was going over there to. We ended there about the same time and we were both in shock at what we seen, my grand baby bruised just like my daughter had told me on the phone. I told them to get her to the ER at CHKD and they did. As soon as they got there the doctor immediatly said it was child abuse and they were going to call a social worker and they did. They think my daughter and Savannahs dad abused her but I know that didn't. So child protective services has decided for Savannah to be placed with me until a further investigation has been done. This has been the most awfulest experience my family has been through. I just need to know if anybody else has went thru being of excuse for child abuse and if so what did you do to prove your innocence and that they were mistaken?

Please tell me anything that might help me - pictures, documented cases, or anything you can think of.

"Thanks GiGi.

Ali,
I don't think you can predict. It does seem he is trying to recover, though. Hopefully he will finally balance out.
We are all riding with you :side:

Oh, hurrah, I'm now a "junior"!! :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

Here's number 20...do I change to something other than fresh now?? :side:

Well, one more and I will know :blink:

If it's more than 20 I am going to be

:ohmy: Could it be 20?

I wonder how many posts it will take.....

I think I will just respond to myself a bunch of times to get rid of that!! :S

Hi Pauline,

I was wondering if your doctor ever mentioned whether Caitlin could try nplate again in the future? I know that with a spleenectomy Nplate may not work as well.

I think about you guys all the time. Hoping you the best,

Debbie (Alissa dx 2003)

I am pleased that I am not really on the one that Dougie's counts would design - todays count was 39, so his counts in the last 4 months have been 5,124,33,60,16,104,39. Desperately trying to see a pattern, but I just can't......... Oh well, its fun to ry to tguess where his count is going - are we on the up, the down or just the straight bit????

Ali

I am spleenless and they still LOVE taking my blood! (I don't have ITP.) I, too, am O-/CMV-. And I became a donor at my ITP daughter's request... Share the love--Share the blood! Ann, Caitlin's Mom

I had a splenectomy (but do not have ITP) and the docs noted an accessory spleen on my post-op notes, which they left in. It is my understanding that sometimes they can see them (I had an open splenectomy)--and sometimes they grow afterward. They can be pretty tiny, and there can be several of them. If it wasn't for the ITP, that would be a good thing! Ann, Caitlin's (22) Mom

thankyoy to every one for your feed back,its been a really big help, jenny

Have you been tested for thyroid antibodies? You can have the symptoms of hypothyroidism with a normal TSH. Fertility issues are common with thyroid problems and there is a higher chance of having Hashimotos or Graves if you have ITP.

thyroid.about.com/library/weekly/aa050199.htm

Thanks ladies. It went fine. I was their first ITPer. good to know about the tea bag!

60 is a great count. Many ITP women have had babies. There are some reviews out there documenting this. There is a good chance you'd need some treatment if you got below 30 or 20. Some women's count goes down during pregnancy but some go up - you really can't predict! You'd need 75 to get an epidural but a cesarean is not required. There's a small chance the baby will have your antibodies and therefore low platelets in the first week or so but you'd deal with it then. I imagine your hemo and the highrisk obgyn would be there.

tamar wrote:

DRT, if you go to the PDSA home page, you'll see a link that says "Now Available: New International Consensus Report on the diagnosis and treatment of ITP". If you navigate to that article, in the introduction you'll see that a diagnosis of ITP is now NOT recommended when platelets are above 100K (not the 150K that lab reports say is "normal"). That was my point in my post above...not being "normal" should not necessarily be a cause for concern.

As with many things that can be measured numerically, platelet counts happen to have a normal distribution and create a bell curve when graphed. The scientific community has chosen 2 std deviations from the mean as "normal", but by doing that, they are guaranteeing that there will be some people at either end of the curve that will be labeled "abnormal" even though there's no cause for alarm. Just some food for thought, which I hope will be helpful.

Thanks Tamar,

I agree with that, which is a large part of one of the things that I personally feel needs to be changed with conventional "Western medicine," where alot of things seem to be not only very "black and white," but where there is not much room for looking at things more "creatively" or outside the box. It reminds me of the psychiatry field of medicine, where it used to be the majority of them were taught various kinds of "talk therapy," and they used it in 50-60 minute sessions with their patients, in addition many times to prescribing meds.

These days, the people I know who have gone only to a psychiatrist (versus a psychologist, MSW, etc.) to get help with depression, anxiety or other issues, are quickly assessed and given medications, usually without a referral to someone who will also talk to them and help work on the causes, versus mask the symptoms with drugs. And with the exception of people with true psychoses, (bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia being the two best known) when cognitive, behavioral modification, Gestalt or other forms of talk therapy could help the non-psychotic folks get to the bottom of things without clouding their feelings with medications, they go once a month for 15-20 minutes for a "med check" with the psychiatrist and continue to think that medications they are on are the only thing that will get them "well." Often they never get well, instead becoming addicted to the medication. I personally think that borders on medical negligence in many cases, and alot of money going to the doctor and the drug companies. And we know how much they already rip off people who need meds but have no generics to use, or their meds are simply very overpriced.

Thanks again for your comments!

DRT

Thanks, Sandi. Just finished up a card for him.

DRT, if you go to the PDSA home page, you'll see a link that says "Now Available: New International Consensus Report on the diagnosis and treatment of ITP". If you navigate to that article, in the introduction you'll see that a diagnosis of ITP is now NOT recommended when platelets are above 100K (not the 150K that lab reports say is "normal"). That was my point in my post above...not being "normal" should not necessarily be a cause for concern.

As with many things that can be measured numerically, platelet counts happen to have a normal distribution and create a bell curve when graphed. The scientific community has chosen 2 std deviations from the mean as "normal", but by doing that, they are guaranteeing that there will be some people at either end of the curve that will be labeled "abnormal" even though there's no cause for alarm. Just some food for thought, which I hope will be helpful.

"If I am lucky, it will come back up above 100k again......that case it would shift from an ITP dx. to one of Pseudothrombocytopenia. And that I can certainly live with, and we'll just monitor things with CBC's as we have been every 2-3 months or so."

The thing is DRT you can live with an ITP diagnosis - I've done it for almost 21 years There are others here who have lived with it longer than I have - you do what you have to do.

For your sake I hope the smear looks good and your count is up there!

Sandi what side effect of guiafenesin?

Hi Gilly, Sorry about that, You had said the Doc was afraid incase you could die if the ovaries were hyperstimulated. Eptopic can kill anyone when the featus is implanted and grows in the tubes but from what i understand Hyperstimulating the ovaries is extra hormones and chemials making the ovaries make and release more eggs than normal so they can collect them and do the ivf bit.
Good luck in your quest
Julia