my story so far..

[mdearman]

I thought it was about time i put my experiences on here for people looking for information like i was a month ago, the story so far...

I'm 37 years old and in good health (or so i thought), I have never taken Antibiotics in my life or any prescribed medication and am very active.

My first symptoms were petechiae on my legs after going for a long run, i put it down to a rash from the rain and forgot about it. a week later i started bruising like crazy on my arms where i wouldn't have done before, and that freaked me out quite a lot, but i was out of the country and decided i couldn't do much until i got home.

Two weeks after getting home i went to the doctor and explained the bruising, they examined me (it had largely gone away) and booked a blood test. at 6pm that evening a doctors car came around to my house and asked me to come back with them immediately for a second blood test, that REALLY freaked me out, the doctor explained I had a platelet count of 3 and they wanted to repeat the test.

the next day i was admitted to hospital (the second test was also 3) and spent the day having observations and more blood tests done, that evening I was discharged with a 40mg daily dose of prednisolone to start the next morning, and another appointment 2 days later

I read all the side effects of prednisolone and posts on this and other forums and got really depressed and scared about the future. I also read through a lot of articles about autoimmune disease and the link to gut health and started to join dots with what i now realise were a year or more of irritable bowel and gut problems i had been having (but ignoring). I also read a lot of the more credible remission stories tend to have diet and lifestyle change.

So on the same day i started Prednisolone as ordered by the doctor and my self imposed diet to try and improve my gut health, because it can't hurt and its something i can control and be pro-active with.