Petechiae and counts

Hi,

I know every one is different however when should one worry if you start to see pechechiae? We're seeing a few dots on my wife's chest. Not many (about 5 or so) and none of them are clustered perse. She is still on 35 of prednisone. Could it cause petechiae? We live quite a ways from Boston which is where her hemo practices and wondering if this is something that could be a lead into a more serious crash.

Happy Holidays!

Thanks

Jay

Jay:

I wouldn't worry about 5 small dots of possible petechiae. If they increase over the next few days, you might want to get a CBC, but right now...it's okay.

I once had clusters of petechiae all over my entire hand one time. Got a count done - it was 250k. Turns out I slept on that hand all night, cut off the circulation, and that's what caused the petechiae. Another time - I woke up with a chest covered in purpura. Purple splotches everywhere. Got a count - 50k. I stopped worrying after that.

My husband does not have ITP. He has coughed and gotten petechiae all around his eyes that lasted days. It looked worse than anything I ever had. He has also had broken blood vessels in his eyes from coughing. It happens.

Jay:
I did not have any bruising or petechia when my count was below 5K, but I did have a he'll of a stomach with significant GI bleeding.

Good Luck

Bob

I logged on to ask just this question. Glad to see that I'm not the only one wondering when to get a CBC. I was diagnosed with ITP last year, though haven't been seen by a hemo/onco yet b/c my count hasn't been alarmingly low. My PCP consulted with them about me, and after the usual diagnosis by elimination... here I am.

Since Sunday I've had several purpura pop up on my arms and legs, and I have a petechial rash on my right flank below my armpit, along with some bruises. My PCP has never treated an ITP patient before, so he'll usually do a CBC if I ask. But I'm not sure it's worth the time and cost to have a CBC at this point.

Any thoughts?

Well, I once had a chestful of purpura and my counts were surprisingly 50k. I never had any purpura with counts under 5k. Go figure.

However, if you are seeing numerous symptoms, such as bruising, purpura and the petechiae is more rash-looking rather than just a few spots, I'd get a CBC. Couldn't hurt.

I personally only start to worry when the petechiae are more like a rash and there are too many to count, and even so, my legs were COVERED in petechiae once and my counts were about 150k. Usually, though, if there are a ton of petechiae, I'm under 20k. If there are just a few, I'm usually in the 50s. To add to the nonsense, when I was first diagnosed and my counts were under 10, I had NO bleeding, NO bruising, NO petechiae, no symptoms PERIOD despite the fact I was training 6 days a week as a competitive figure skater, slamming just about every body part imaginable on the ice daily. I am fortunate enough to be able to get a CBC done Monday-Friday between 8 am and 5 or 6 pm, results in an hour, at the clinic 20 minutes from my house. Even with the ease of the blood draw, I don't worry until it's rash-like or on it's way to rash-like. 5 or so petechiae doesn't sound like a red flag to me, but that's just me personally.

Oh. Just noticed how old this thread is. Jay, what ended up happening?