Regarding normal sex life...

For anyone reading this who has not read and/or commented in my thread which chronicles my wife's diagnosis 3 months ago and subsequent treatment: she's being treated with Nplate right now with no symptoms (bruises, petechiae, oral ulcers) and her count 2 days back was 104,000.

She is completely scared to have sex. She understands that risk of bleeding with a count of 104k is really low, but she is concerned with the increased bloodflow to her sexual organs causing her some sort of problem. She can't really specify what scares her about that, but she's too afraid to be intimate. She's actually even afraid of becoming aroused due to the vague "bloodflow" worry.

Anyone care to comment? Hopefully no one considers this message inappropriate.

With a count of 104, I would not be scared to have sex. Maybe she could talk to her doctor to give her some peace of mind?

Mcochran... If you ask her she is probably a little scared of lots of things... Not just sex, time will fix this and she will get past the fear. I was always scared of having a car accident... Not the accident part, the air bag going off part.. Probably not rational but the mind is a powerful thing. She will be ok just go slow.

I agree with Milly. Your wife has been through a lot in the past few months. It can take a while to move past the fear or anxiety to start feeling like resuming normal life.

dru wrote: I agree with Milly. Your wife has been through a lot in the past few months. It can take a while to move past the fear or anxiety to start feeling like resuming normal life.

Hmmmmm...I'm not pressuring her to resume our sex life. She raised this concern up to me. I feel the need to point out what I'm sure any married member of this forum could affirm: it is WE who have been through a lot the last few months. There is no sick spouse-well spouse. When one is sick, the other is equally affected.

Absolutely true... It's hard on both people, sorry didn't want that to seem the way it sounded. Both parties certainly do get effected by this.
Maybe it is worrying your spouse and she might just need some help. I do hope you can get to a spot that your partnership is back to the way it was. You seem a very understanding person. I know my husband was effected a lot by what was happening to me and in some ways it was harder on him then me and in other ways harder on me.... But that's what a partnership is about... Sharing the load.
Again I am sorry if I offended you...

milly wrote: Absolutely true... It's hard on both people, sorry didn't want that to seem the way it sounded. Both parties certainly do get effected by this.
Maybe it is worrying your spouse and she might just need some help. I do hope you can get to a spot that your partnership is back to the way it was. You seem a very understanding person. I know my husband was effected a lot by what was happening to me and in some ways it was harder on him then me and in other ways harder on me.... But that's what a partnership is about... Sharing the load.
Again I am sorry if I offended you...

No, you didn't offend me in the slightest! Not at all.

A count of 104 is actually considered to be a normal count. The definition of ITP has been changed to 'counts under 100k'. Also, anything over 50k is considered to be a safe count for most activities and I would think that includes sex.

It would probably benefit your wife to read more about ITP. Speaking to her doctor might also give her some reassurance. I was the opposite; I didn't stop doing anything when counts were low and it never occurred to me that sex might not be a good idea. Nothing bad happened, even with counts under 10k.

I'm not sure that there is anything we can say that will help her. She will have to come to terms with this herself and find her comfort level. There is a lot of positive information out there about ITP. I hope she will do some research and learn, but I know that fear keeps some people from doing that. Once you get past the thought that you don't have to have a count of 150k+ to be 'normal', the fear subsides.

Good luck to both of you. I'm sure things will improve in time.