Hi, I have been "low but stable" and not requiring treatments for my ITP for the past 15 years (first diagnosed in 2010). However my numbers have been on a slow creep downward -- I used to hover in the 70-80 range with occasional dips into the 60s and 50s, but in the past 5 years I have stayed in the high 50s, low 60s. When I got covid in 2023 my platelets jumped to 115, and then dropped immediately into the low 50s. Lowest I had ever been. I was supposed to have an endoscopy/colonoscopy this past July but my gastro doc cancelled the appt when they did a blood draw that showed platelets in the high 40s. Went to my oncologist and his draw still had me in the 50s so that was good, but for the first time I started really researching treatment options because I realized that if I drop any lower, it makes it more difficult to do medical procedures I might need.
So in August I decided to try two "alternatives" (I wouldn't even call them treatments). One, I had read about papaya, and I couldn't afford the papaya juice extract because of the cost, but I found some "Papaya Enzyme Complex" chewable pills at my local Walmart that were super cheap, so I started taking them -- 4 a day, along with my usual vitamins. Two, I read something about how aspartame can impact platelets. Friends, I am a diet soda fiend and I know it's not healthy, but it brings me joy, so I didn't try to quit cold turkey. But I noticed that the "zero" sugar diet sodas have a combination of aspartame plus a different artificial sweetener. So I switched to drinking those zero sugar versions whenever possible.
I just had a blood draw yesterday and I'm excited to report that my platelet count was 72. That is a number I have not seen in over 5 years (excepting my covid anomaly)!!! Is it the papaya enzyme complex supplement, or the decrease in aspartame? I don't know, but I'm going to keep doing both. I had talked to my oncologist about both things and he said he hadn't heard of either, but that it didn't hurt to try.
TL/DR: My platelets have gone up from the 50s into the 70s, and the only thing I've been doing different is taking Papaya Enzyme Complex supplements and drinking zero sugar diet sodas instead of aspartame-only diet sodas.
