Anybody Here Familiar with ITP (A Blood Disorder)?

My dear friend's son had ITP last year. They noticed that he was suddenly covered in bad bruises, so they took him to the ped. Blood work sent them to the ER immediately.

In his case, they did not treat it. He was checked every week and his platelets slowly climbed on their own, and after several weeks he was considered recovered. He's totally fine now. They suspect that it resulted from a virus that he'd had, and although his mother is now a bit paranoid--naturally--he has not had a resurgence of any symptoms.

It's scary, but most kids do get better on their own. Good luck!

Hi L.,
My 5 yr. old son has a bleeding disorder called Von Willebrans disease. His blood clots slowly and he bruises easily and will not be able to do any contact sports. I'm only slightly familiar with ITP, but when my son was diagnosed I was put in contact with a group in my state called Hemophelia of Georgia. They do lots of workshops, seminars, and get-togethers for families that have a child with any bleeding disorder. You should check to see if there are any such groups in your home state. Many of these activities they sponsor for free and they can also help if you need factor or DDAVP for clotting. My son only needs medication if he has a bleeding episode that lasts too long, but I still need to have it on hand and regular pharmacies don't carry factor or the synthetic. I have to order his Stimate and Amicar from an online pharmacy and have it shipped. If you can find a group like this close to you, they can help put you in touch with other families close to you that might have the same or similar condition. Hope this helps,
D.

Yes, I have an 18 year old son who suffered for two years with Chronic ITP. He had many courses of gamma globin treatments,platelet transfers, chemo drugs, and finally a splenctomy at Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota in May of 04 at the age of 13.
He has been healthy ever since, you would never know. They actually removed his spleen at Mayo by laparascope! There is a fantastic support group, for ITP on the web and they have great contacts. There are so many new drugs. I would recommend getting in touch with someone at Mayo, they are so on top of their research on ITP, and have a lot of the answers. I want to let you also know that my son was an athlete at the time, and still is. A very active competitve athlete, and he was able to particpate until his platelets got into the danger range, and he would have to go in for treatments. The danger range was below 20,000 for him. He had a standing order at the lab for blood work so we could keep an eye.
Please feel free to contact myself or him for any other info. He was diagnosed at age 11.
There is hope!
J. R

L.,
My nephew developed ITP when he was about 12 to 18 months old. His older brother was showing him his Incredible Hulk action figure that punched its fist when a button on the back was pushed. Well, you guessed it, Hulk punched Matt in the eye, which immediately turned BLACK! Not red, not blue, not purple, but BLACK! My sister took him to the Dr., that's when they also noticed there were a number of small red dots (broken capillaries) starting to pop up on Matt's face and body. They admitted him to the hospital and ran extensive blood work on him. ITP was the diagnosis. He was hospitalized for several weeks until his platelets were at a safe level. His black eye took a long time to go away, and to this day he (is now 26 yrs old) hasn't had any other problems with ITP.
We had a neighbor (in her 50's) that had ITP about 2 yrs. ago and she has completely recovered.
One thing I do remember the Dr.s mentioning about ITP, is that there is some evidence that it sometimes shows up after a cold or viral infection. Whether ITP is linked to them as a cause or that the body was already in a weakened state from the infection that ITP was able to develop ...the Dr.s never told us.
I wish you and your daughter the best. I hope that she will be able to get back to her regular routine soon.

Milly