My daughter has Celiac Disease and then we found out at age 10/11 she has ITP. I may have gotten her platelets up one time from 80,000 to 123,000 with diet... Currently she has had a couple severe colds this year and bruising more frequently. I decided to start another diet of pomegranate juice, blueberry and banana smoothies with organic almond milk, lot more organic baked vegetables every day and other organic foods. Seemed to stop her cold and she feels better. We only get platelet reading once a year so hard to tell right now if they are going up. Last august they were around 80.. I am considering finding out more information on blood type diet and Ayurvedic diet. And possibly taking her to a Natropath doctor who specializes in hematology. Any thoughts? Experiences with food/diet? And what kind of food helped you.
Thank you
Roxanne.
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Roxanned
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I asked my haematologist if there was any link between itp and diet and was told there wasn't. As a result I just eat a balanced diet and find my count stabilises at just over 100. However I do take Eltrombopag tablets to maintain this level. With a count of 80 to 120 I think you and your daughter have nothing to worry about as long as she shows no symptoms other than bruising. If you feel her diet is having a positive effect on her health then do carry on, especially as she also has coeliac disease. Good luck.
I really do believe what we put in our bodies has an affect on our health. Not sure our MD's out there have a lot of experience in the natural side of healing and health. I really wish there was more research on this disease and diet. Sure seems like there are a lot of unknowns and what helps for long periods of time. If any.
Your daughter is doing the most intelligent thing I can imagine. As many having celiac disease, which is another autoimmune disease, I personally believe ITP is another autoimmune condition in which the body attacks itself. The conclusion (many online videos by various doctors) for most if not all autoimmune conditions is the common leaky gut syndrome where food particles enter the bloodstream and the immune system mistakenly creates antibodies that target your body instead of the food particles. I too am trying to take the diet approach for my ITP by first trying the leaky gut protocol. But I have no experience with healing leaky gut.
I won't know if I am successful for some time but I am also using the ketogenic diet for weight loss and cure for my type 2 diabetes all at the same time. I can say the keto diet is working great for my diabetes. The difficulty with the immune response is all the immune memory cells the keep recreating the problem antibodies. I have had repeated rituxan treatments that weaken the immune system and I think that is a poor approach although it is the standard approach when your spleen keeps removing platelets and I want to avoid a splenectomy. I wish your daughter the best of luck and would like to hear more of her progress.
I also think that she had celiac and had leaky gut. We got her a endoscopy at 6 and her small intestine was already damaged from gluten!! Very upsetting to hear at such a young age. I really want to avoid drugs and the splenectomy. Does not seem to me that either work for very long!! I just think diet is the way to go. Keep us posted on your progress and we will keep you posted as well. All the best.
Roxanne.
I am hoping there are more people out there who are dealing with this with diet.... 🙁
Thank you Roxanned. I have been waiting for members of this forum to mention non toxic ways to deal with this disease. Your post was the first I have seen on this theme and I am encouraged. Doctors on youtube that I gravitate to are Dr. Mercola, Dr. Axe, Dr. Berg, Dr. Bergman, Dr Darren Schmidt from Ann Arbor Nutrition and Healing center of Ann Arbor.
Their messages ring true to me and because some of them are chiropractors, I find consistency in the idea our nervous system is central and in control of the body components and you cannot isolate the parts. I do not have a medical background but I am an electrical systems engineer. I find close correlation in the body with electrical systems. Bodies are also very complex systems of systems and components all coordinated by communication between the brain, nervous system and individual functional components in the body.
I am 70 yrs old and retired now so I have plenty of time to be fascinated with our complex intelligent design our creator has blessed us with. We just have to get out of the way. Cheers
I am researching diet to try to raise my platelets. I just started drinking wheat grass juice I have no symptoms of celiac but if the wheat grass juice doesn't work I'm going to remove gluten. I think it's great that you are trying food instead of meds.
Yes. Thank you!!! Also, try drinking a small pomegranate juice every day, blueberries in a smoothie or alone, and green veggies... that's what we did a while back and her platelets got up to 123. No meds for her. They don't seem to work so why put chemicals in our bodies. ?? Keep me posted on your progress. We go draw blood today, dr appt on Aug 8. I will update after that. Roxanne.
I will try the pomegranate juice, blueberries and green veggies. I will try anything cause my spleen is health according to my Dr so when they said that if nothing works and so far steroids and igiv hasn't They will remove it, I started researching foods to increase platelets. Thanks for the tips
I haven't scratched the surface yet but I am trying:
1. Cut down/ out dairy
2. Aloe Vera juice
3. Lots of ginger (in food and drinks / hot or cooked tea).
4. Fasting for two days a week (no more than 500 calories a day on fast days). I might build up to a full three day fast (as someone else has in this forum recently) but that will take me a while!
5. High dosage of vitamin C (3000mg per day).
Dr Andrew Weil's book, spontaneous healing, has been instructive and he also has a book on diet. It is not focused on ITP but is useful as an overall guide to holistic health.
I've had ITP for one year and was discovered through routine CBC, it seems it started when I was pregnant 4 yrs ago. During my routine test my platelets were ranging from 20-30. Doctor prescribed me 4 days high dexamethasone. Platelets went up but would come back down in the coming weeks. I was then put on 30 mg prednisone. I started to feel that diet has to play a role. Over the course 5-6 months I completely changed my diet. Gluten free, spinach, asparagus, broccoli and lean protein every day. Carrot juice and green juice every other day. My platelets slowly began to improve while tapering down prednisone and I'm still taking 5 mg right now. When I initially started 30 mg pred my platelets were 110 and slowly began to drop as I tapered down the pred. But over the course of 5-6 months of eating healthy and changing my eating lifestyle as I started to taper down my platelets started to increase and my hema even asked me what I have been doing. My platelets are now 156 at 5mg pred. I know doctors say diet may not impact your platelets, but i feel your health solely depends on what you put in your body including other medical conditions. I wanted to look for a natural way to heal my body instead of being suppressed by drugs. Hang in there for your daughter as I know it's hard to feed kids green veggies.
Hi Jwong65. Thank you for your message!! I am happy to hear someone else is doing the diet. Hope more people get on board ! The last month she has been doing really well. I make her a smoothie everyday with blueberries and a banana and a vitimjn protein mix that we share. Not a lot of that. I also give her a small glass of pomegranate juice everyday. Then I bake organic veggies. Which she likes ! I read berrys, and pomegranate juice and maybe cherry juice. Today we go get the blood taken. I will update. Last year her platelets we 80. So I really feel like this is making a difference. I completely believe in what we eat has the ability to heal us or hurt us...
keep me posted on your results. Thank you!! Best of luck!!
Hi, I took my daughter back to the hematologist after getting her blood taken like a week or so earlier. It came back at 143,000 platelets!!! I am so happy. Not sure if it was the diet or not. But the last time I did this diet they went up to 120! So I hope more of you people read my post and try it. I'm a firm believer is nutrition for health. The worst that could happen if you try it, is it doesn't work....
So she doesn't have to go see him every 6 months now. Dr said we can come back next summer unless she starts getting a lot of bruises or nose bleeds.
I'm not sure about the blueberries. I've seen websites both pro and con. Check other sites. I'll look it up and send. I'm suffering from dizziness after a huge blood loss and looked up blood types. There are diets based on blood type, see Dr. D'amano (not sure of the spelling. I'll also check with an auyrvedic cook I know.
A well balanced diet is essential for optimum health but there are no foods that will cure ITP or stimulate the body to increase platelet production !! You said your daughter has Celiac disease, she most likely will benefit from a Gluten Free diet. You must eliminate all wheat, rye and barely from her diet, she will feel much better. Pomegranate juice is high in antioxidants and tastes good but will cure ITP.
Is your daughter been followed by a hematologist,if so why is he/she only checking platelets once a year? Where do you live do you have easy access major medical centers. It would benefit your daughter if you learned as much as you could about ITP’s symptoms and treatment options and spend less time studying “Blood Type” and Ayurvedic diets kyriak51
Your biggest ally is the vitamin C. Not to boost the immune system, but to process and absorb iron properly. She still may need an iron infusion at some point, ITP flare ups will deplete her iron from muscle and organ tissue leading to other major medical problems. Keep her hooked up with the foods high in vitamin c! The better her nutrition, the faster she can rebound.
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