Eliminating other diseases

[jwk4]

I am very new to all this😞 at what point where you guys confident it was itp and not cancer or something? I'm scared to death.

[edim]

When my son showed me his bruises, I immediately thought leukaemia but generally if your white blood cells are normal and your hemoglobin is at normal levels, chances are it is ITP and not cancer.

[jwk4 in reply to edim]

thank you😊 I'm finally beginning to believe that. I wish my head didn't go there. My heart goes out to you💜 I hope your son is doing well. I hear that itp in children often corrects itself. 💜 💜 💜

[Lynwoodley]

Hi. I asked the same question on my 2nd visit to my consultant as he had done all the blood tests on the first visit. Luckily I was ok it was only my platelets that were low the red and white blood cells were ok.

[jwk4 in reply to Lynwoodley]

me too😊 everything else is normal and has remained normal. This page is a life saver. Thank you for responding 😊

[Lynwoodley in reply to jwk4]

Yes is it a life saver I was very worried when I was diagnosed but this site is very positive so helps Enormously as it shows you can live ok with ITP.

[janran]

Hi

I've had itp for 5 years now and the only test I had to diagnose it was blood tests. My consultant's opinion is that if you have low platelets but the rest of your blood cells are in the normal range then its itp. This was further confirmed by an improvement in the count after taking steroids so try not to worry too much. I'm lucky because I don't really bleed even with counts below 10, I respond really quickly to steroids but the count slowly drops when I'm off them. I only have treatment when the count drops to single figures and most of the time I don't even think about having it. Hopefully you will have a similar experience. Its scary when you're first diagnosed with something like this and I'm quite an anxious person. But there are lot of people on this forum that live well with low counts and I found their advice to be very reassuring. You just have to watch for signs of bleeding (bruising, bleeding gums, blood blisters in your mouth) and go to get your count checked if you see them. Its always better to go to hospital if you are at all concerned but as you get used to your own symptoms and counts you will become more relaxed about it I'm sure.

Regards Janet

[jwk4 in reply to janran]

you could be writing my story! This has been my experience so far too. Thank you for taking so much time to share your story. There are so many scary ones. I'm so happy to only have itp. We are the lucky ones.

[Morgan]

To confirm my ITP I was given a bone marrow test.

[Lynwoodley]

Once you have all the blood tests back it will give an indication of if anything else is wrong I asked the consultant outright on my second visit if I had cancer