General ITP Information needed for a good cause

Hello everybody,

My name is Maria and I am 16 years old living in Singapore, I was diagnosed with ITP in march of 2010 and for the past 2 years I have been very lucky to not have had a severe case of ITP. Throughout these two years it has been hard for me to get use to a routine that I was never expecting to follow, but it has led me to appreciate the little things of life. Before I use to just want to forget about the fact that I had this condition but I have decided that it is time for a change, and embrace it by learning about it a bit more. This year I would like to get a little more involved with the topic of ITP to learn more about it. I am planning to do a 6K run in June this year in order to raise money for those people with ITP that have more severe cases; I am getting people in Singapore to sponsor me in order to raise as much money for this association. Furthermore I am also writing an essay about ITP in order to increase the awareness of it; but in order to do this I need some help from patients that could share with my how the body reacts with the ITP. There are different things that I am keen to find out, some of them are these:
Do sleep patterns affect ITP?
Do diets affect ITP?
What are some drugs that might affect ITP?
BY having any infections or illnesses does that affect ITP and the platelet counts?
Do hormones affect ITP? (eg. menstrual cycle)
Can seasonal changes have an impact on ITP?
Do feelings have an impact on ITP? (e.g. depression, stress)
If any of you could give me some of their own experience about any of these questions, it would be very much appreciated. Not only is it helping me, but it is helping thousands of ITP patients and people increase their own awareness of a condition that is not fully understood yet. If you guys have any other questions that you think would be relevant for me to research then go ahead and suggest it .
Any further comments or requests then you can email me at maria_clara_gomez@yahoo.com
Thank you so much and remember it is for a good cause.

I don’t think ITP affects sleep patterns.
I don’t think ITP is affected by DIET (however, do NOT drink tonic water) something in it makes blood thin.
DO not take NSAIDS (aspirin, ibuprofen, Etc. ) they all thin blood
A virus can lower your platelet level
Hormone effect...Great question.. i think it does effect mine somehow? But I feel most dr's don’t know jack..
I don’t think seasons effect ITP
I don’t think ITP causes depression, but i think some medication prescribed to those with ITP do.

Lemme know how your research goes.. especially about the hormones!

The tonic water thing is not really true and I have made it my mission to say so at any opportunity.. gin and tonic being my drink of choice

The counts will only drop with quinine, which is in tonic water, if you are sensitive to it and it's very rare to be so. For the rest of us it's fine. It's also very easy to test it as your counts would plummet immediately on ingestion and go back up within a few days. The same can be true of walnuts in a rare few people. By coincidence coffee and walnut cake is my favourite sweet treat.

A doctor said the other day that viruses will lower the platelet count and bacterial infections will raise it which I found interesting. She also said that people think it's the antibiotics with the bacterial infection that raise the count but it isn't, it's actually the bug. That was interesting too.