Does Spring throw your child off?

So my son was diagnosed with Chronic ITP when he was 18 months old, he is now 5 1/2. We've noticed that every Spring he seems to take a dip and things start to go crazy. Last year and the year before this happened, right now he has a large amount of Petechia around his eye from going down our slide head first. My oldest son was sick with something totally different and his doctor todl us every year at Spring time kids tend to relapse and come back for some strange reason, he said it happens like clock work and they can't explain it. Anyone else?

Shelley

Hi shelley,

Devyn's mom here....I received your email earlier. I love your little guys name...great choice LOL

I find that Devyn dips every fall, just when all the crappy weather and many viruses start to come around. So it could definitly be a pattern for you little man too but just in spring. With ITP i feel i never really know what is going on, as i'm sure most of us can agree with.

How have his counts been before the spring?

Deanna

LOL! I love it too!

We only do his counts once a year unless he's really sick and seen at the hospital or if I think he needs to be checked so he hasn't been seen since July 2010 ( longest time ever!) he was 133! I'm thinking of getting him checked Friday but since he's in school all day now it's so hard to get him checked because I don't want him to miss school, he isn't sick and he said he feels fine he just seems over tired and the petechia is there.

Shelley

The last time i had Devyn checked he had petechia in a few places and when we did the counts i was shocked to find he was at 259,000!! I've read on here before that they can get petechia when there counts go up quickley too.....another mystery about ITP.

I'm taking Devyn for a count in the next couple of weeks because he will be going to the dentist for the first time, we usually go 6 weeks between tests but because he was so high the last time we decided to go a bit longer in between. So maybe to ease your mind a test would be a good hing right now

When you sent Deven to school for the first time how did you prepare his teachers? I want him to be safe but i also don't want him to be treated much differently then the other kids.

Keep us posted if you decide to go get him tested.....hopefully counts are great

Deanna

Hi, Shelley -

My son always dips down in the winter - so, three different seasons for the three kids mentioned here! Brady has had ITP for 9 years now and has been more stable the last couple of years, but the first 7 years of ITP he would always have a huge drop and need a treatment either in late December or early January. I always wondered if it would be different if we lived some place like Florida, without the harsh winters.

I'm sure there are plenty of kids who drop in Spring, though. Do you think it could be seasonal allergy-related?

Deanna-I'm wondering now if he did a big dip and then spiked, if that makes sense, does anything about ITP make sense? OMG! 259,000!!! I don't think Deven will ever see that number unless we do treatments, do you do treatments at all or does he take medication? When Deven started school I wrote a letter to the school making them aware that he had it and explained what it was but also explained how I didn't expect there to ever be any problems and they should treat him like any other kid, I explained I was only telling them because I felt they had the right to know and I also wanted them to know in case they noticed the petechia or excessive bruising since it can be alarming. I do know the school nurse looked at it but left it at another school because that school called me :blink: We had an incident last month where another child threw a block of ice at Deven's head and I wasn't called so I called and when I mentioned the platelet issue to his teacher she seemed to be shocked so obviously the letter is not in his file! I'll be discussing it next week at parent teacher conference. I just don't want to make it seem like a huge deal but I want them to be aware.

Does Devyn bruise a lot or bleed much? Deven has normal bruising for a 5 1/2 year old and his clotting factors are normal so bleeding has never been an issue. He's had surgery for a Hydrocele ( THIS KID GETS EVERYTHING!)and the anestesiologist was so anal about it they checked him 100 times and he was 125 before surgery so she did it but had the platelets on hand but nothing even came close to happening that being said my husband has the exact same thing and had surgery twice last year, in January he was lower than the surgery in July, January went fine and in July he almost died now the surgeon is saying he may have knicked a main artery but we'll never know.

Shelley

Beth- He doesn't have seasonal allergies and everything here is still pretty well dead still so I doubt that is it. I alwasy wonder about if things would be better if we lived somewhere warmer too. When Deven was 2-4 and in preschool he was sick non stop and it seems like it's given him a really good immune system, he did really well this past Winter and was hardly sick at all and we don't even do the flu shot.

Shelley

Shelley,

Devyn has only had to get treatments twice....both times IVIG and the last treatment was almost a year ago, and i pray everyday that he never has to do treatment again. Also he does not take medication

When his counts are really low (30 and below) he bruises a lot but he has not had any issues with bleeding "knock on wood" His hemo seems to think that he has reaccuring ITP because he does not follow the typical pattern of "cronic ITP" he was diagnoised at 14months, we did his first ivig treatment and his counts went back to normal for over a year. Shortly after giving him the h1n1 flu shot i noticed bruising again and took him for a cbc and my concerns were confirmed, his counts were in the 30's.....his counts were all over the place, high and low until april and that is when we saw his all time low 8,000 so we decided to treat with the second round of ivig. This time he had some reactions to the treatment but it did bring him back up, he has had some low numbers since then but also some amazing numbers....fingers crossed that he stays high.

How is the petechia now? Gone i hope

Deanna