Please Help with any suggestions

Hi All- My name is Debbie I am a past member of PDSA with a remission period of almost 3 years now. Platelets are now at 385K and holding! Hooray for me! I need help for a friend- I have exhausted all of my ideas and thoughts for her. My friend's daughter is 18 and was diagnosed with ITP 2 weeks ago. She went into ER- platelets at 4K- took IVIG platelets went up to 19K- she went home with 60mg of Pred per day and 3 days later- crashed to 4k and in the ER again. She has been in the hospital 5 days now- no movement on platelets- Pred not working- tried Solumederol- did not work- tried Rituxan had a very bad reaction so the stopped the treatment. Meanwhile she has developed an infection- fever spiking to 103- they believe infection is from the IV port. They can't contain the infection with antibiotics. Meanwhile Platelets have dropped to below 2k and can't treat ITP until the fever is gone. The doctor has brought up a Platelet Transfusion a couple of times. ANY thoughts comments or suggestions guys any new drugs recently that I am not familiar with???????
Thank you all- you were my life boat when I was going through this!!!!!!!!

Hi Debbie, I'm so sorry your friend is going through so much. My husband Don has had numerous health problems and is newly diagnosed with ITP. I do know he had a MRSA infection last year that resulted in a below the knee amputation. He was given massive doses of Vancomycin which got rid of the infection (or maybe it was the surgery), but Vancomycin, as well as many antibiotics, is listed as drugs that can lower platelets. But first, they need to get the infection under control, so they need to do whatever to treat it. The platelet transfusion would probably help with active bleeding. Does your friend have any bleeding?

Dear Debbie,

It does sound like quite possibly your friend's daughter does have a MRSA infection, and now VRSA (Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus)is becoming more and more common. It's a very huge problem in hospitals, very difficult to treat. My 8 year old son got
CA-MRSA (Community Acquired MRSA), two years ago, after getting a puncture wound. It was so fast progressing, like nothing I'd ever seen, just eating the flesh away on his face.
I am a Homeopath by profession, and first tried treating him with a homeopathic remedy that I saw was indicated, before resorting to antibiotic therapy. It was one that I had to order, being a more unusual one. But, it began working for him within 20 minutes, so we were narrowly able to avoid hospitalization, just at the last minute. He needed only that one dose to completely heal up. Since then, I've had the opportunity to treat many patients with MRSA infections, that are not responding to antibiotics. (It seems to be a real epidemic here. Personally, I feel that many are being exposed to it from contamination of our beaches and water.) So far, the results have been very, very favorable, with even very longstanding MRSA infections clearing up rapidly, when the antibiotics were not doing the trick. These powerful antibiotics are very damaging to the body and mind, as well, and can have long lasting effects. While most don't think of homeopathy as being an emergency medicine, or able to deal with serious issues like this, in fact, it has over a 200 year history of doing just that. It might be something to consider, but definitely requires a highly experienced professional.

My daughter is fast approaching her 6 year anniversary of normal platelets, after being treated with a homeopathic remedy. In the last few years, I've treated a handful of other patients with ITP, with their own specific remedy, and seen very good results, too. So, that might also be something your friend might explore. Most that have come to me have not been responding to the typical treatments.

Something to think about...
April

Dear Debbie,

It does sound like quite possibly your friend's daughter does have a MRSA infection, and now VRSA (Vancomycin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus)is becoming more and more common. It's a very huge problem in hospitals, very difficult to treat. My 8 year old son got
CA-MRSA (Community Acquired MRSA), two years ago, after getting a puncture wound. It was so fast progressing, like nothing I'd ever seen, just eating the flesh away on his face.
I am a Homeopath by profession, and first tried treating him with a homeopathic remedy that I saw was indicated, before resorting to antibiotic therapy. It was one that I had to order, being a more unusual one. But, it began working for him within 20 minutes, so we were narrowly able to avoid hospitalization, just at the last minute. He needed only that one dose to completely heal up. Since then, I've had the opportunity to treat many patients with MRSA infections, that are not responding to antibiotics. (It seems to be a real epidemic here. Personally, I feel that many are being exposed to it from contamination of our beaches and water.) So far, the results have been very, very favorable, with even very longstanding MRSA infections clearing up rapidly, when the antibiotics were not doing the trick. These powerful antibiotics are very damaging to the body and mind, as well, and can have long lasting effects. While most don't think of homeopathy as being an emergency medicine, or able to deal with serious issues like this, in fact, it has over a 200 year history of doing just that. It might be something to consider, but definitely requires a highly experienced professional.

My daughter is fast approaching her 6 year anniversary of normal platelets, after being treated with a homeopathic remedy. In the last few years, I've treated a handful of other patients with ITP, with their own specific remedy, and seen very good results, too. So, that might also be something your friend might explore. Most that have come to me have not been responding to the typical treatments.

Something to think about...
April

Thanks so much for your comments guys. It gives me such a secure and comforting feeling that when I post on this site, I will have caring and thoughtful responses so quickly. the hospital has found the culture in her blood to be growing so hopefully they will know soon what they are dealing with.
As for the ITP- how does the infection affect her at this point with less than 2k platelets?? If they were to give her a platelet transfusion would it give her a couple of days before she starts destroying them- or a few hours?? Has anyone used N-Plate- what are your thoughts on it???
You would think I was a newbie at this- however I spent 9 days in the hospital- tried Prednisone- Whinro and Splenectomy- all failed. Rituxin was my saving grace- 3 years of it and pushed it into remission completely. Today- 385k- 3 years now.
My friend's daughter- had a terrible reaction to Rituxin- anxiety- vomitting and extreme joint pain- they had to stop the 1st treatment.
Thanks for sharing your stories for me!

Hi Debbie. Glad to hear of your remission. Also, my heart goes out to your friend and her daughter. I'll be praying.
I did NPlate. It did raise my counts up ALOT! within a week or so. I did have severe joint pain from it though. I was on Rituxan at the same time, so when the Rituxan kicked in I stopped the NPlate and will not go back on it! As I'm sure you remember every one is different though. Please keep us updated.

I just reviewed Don's lab reports from his stint with the MRSA infection. He was hospitalized with the infection and had platelet counts in the 240 range, when he left the hospital, after treatment with Vancomycin his counts were in the 180. It would appear that the infection didn't affect his counts as much as the antibiotic. After he was diagnosed with ITP this year, and treatment with steroids, he got a urinary tract infection. He was just a couple weeks into Nplate therapy and his counts were 4, he received an antibiotic for the infection, and his counts went up to 66, then 83, then after he finished his antibiotic, his counts dropped to 23. They went back up the next week and with Nplate his latest count is 99 (woo hoo). So in this case, I don't know if the infection was keeping his counts at 4, then when his infection cleared his counts went up?? Nplate is more maintenance, one shot a week forever. It was explained to us that if you stop Nplate, your counts will drop to pretreatment levels. It would seem like other treatments might be tried first before resorting to Nplate, but I'm really new to ITP so others would know more than I about other treatments. There are also some negative side effects that are rare, but do occur, and because your friends daughter is so young, they might want to consider what long time treatment with Nplate might mean. It sounds like them are going to have a handle on the infection, that's really good news. Oh, almost forgot, when Don was first diagnosed and put in the hospital with ITP, they gave him platelets and he rose from 2 to 22 overnight, only to drop the next day. But he wasn't bleeding afterwards which was a good thing. I don't think platelets do much for the count.

Dear Debbie, my daughter was given platlets to have a bone marrow biopsy when she was at 1,000 biopsy was done at 1pm and at 3pm retest she was back at 1,000 all gone within hours

i had the treatment of win-roh when i was first diagnosed maybe you cna try asking about that