Re: Platelets dropping

[Guest guest]

Someone smarter please jump in here.... from what I recall,

low platelets need to be evaluated since they may be the

result of one form or another of anemia, of which there are

many (a complex subject), and dealt with before any

treatment aimed at CLL is considered.

While this may be the 'result' of the CLL, treatment of CLL

should not be an automatic response to this finding. Am I

right?

Since this seems, from your post to be your 'only' current

presenting concern, you may want to check some posts and

links by Obrien, Hamblin, Venkat, CLL Canada etc. the

archives of this list are rife with those, and the other

sites are;

http://mutated-unmuated.blogspot.com/ Dr. Hamblin

http://www.cllcanada.ca Dwyer et al

http://www.clltopics.org Venkat

be well, Beth Fillman

Mod's note from :

Here's another - http://cll.acor.org/pp%20platelets.htm

[Guest guest]

Hello, the important thing is to know why your platelets are

dropping. Is it because of the CLL or some other problem,

perhaps an anemia of some type.

Dave Tipton

[Guest guest]

My platelets have been dropping since last November. They

had originally been around 150,000 and slowly dropped over

the winter to a 100,000. Since the white count is also

rising it was beginning to look as if I might need chemo

eventually.

When I was there a couple of weeks ago the platelets had

risen to 137,000--still not normal, but a vast improvement

over last time. I also have lupus, and used anti-

inflammatories to control that disease. So I switched to

only a small dose of prednisone for the lupus if needed,

when the platelets hit 100,000.

The anti-inflammatories can cause bleeding issues and I

didn't want to risk it. I don't know if that helped, or

the platelets just recovered on their own, but I wanted to

mention it, in case it helps someone else a bit.

I'm still looking at potential chemo by the end of the year

in any case, because my white count is still rising, but at

least it isn't impacting the platelets as much as it used

to.

I'm also stuck with tylenol if I have a bad headache which

isn't perfect, but I'm managing.

Sylvia Hancock