New Treatments

Hello! How exciting to find this forum. I'm over 40. I first had ITP when I was about 16. I've had several episodes of very low platelets and was treated successfully with prednisone each time. For the past several years, things have been more or less ok. Recently, I took an antibiotic and have been under mega stress and things are "iffy" at the moment. I'm hoping my platelets will go up in due time. My lymphocytes (sp?) are borderline high (a bit of a concern as well). On my mind is that I have an eye condition and now steriods are contraindicated. I'm out of touch with platelet treatments. I gather the use of prednisone is typically considered one of the more simpler treatments (although it sometimes was tough...side effects, etc.) What are the newer tx's and which ones are easier and more effective than others? Thank you.

The two newish TPO's are helping a lot of folk: Nplate and Promacta.
I have had very good luck with Promacta for the past couple of years (after some other treatments had ceased to work for me over the years).
Promacta is easy to use, I just take a two 25mg pills a day.
It stabilized my platelet count to around 50k. Best thing is that I only get tested and see my Hematologist a couple times a year now. Sure beats the constant monitoring I was doing.
Side effects are minimal compared to other treatments I have used in the past. It's relatively new, so long-term side effects are still unknown. But to paraphrase what a wise person here said recently; 'We know the long term side effects of Prednisone'...and yet, we still use it for all sort of things. Since just shy of 59, 'long term' isn't as long or scary to me as it may be to someone in their 20's.

BUT....like everything else with ITP....your mileage may vary.

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Nomad - hello. I'm glad you found us.

I can't say that any one treatment is easier or more effective than another. It depends on the person. One person might have a great response and no side effects from a treatment and another person might have no response and horrible side effects from the same treatment. Everyone is different and it's trial and error. Also, the goals are different. Some treatments can cause remission and some just maintain safe counts.

Here is a list of common treatments:

Steroids: Prednisone, Decadron
Immunosuppressants: Imuran, CellCept
Immunotherapy: Rituxan
TPO's: N-Plate, Promacta
Immune Globulins: IVIG, Win-Rho

You'd need to read about all of them and read the experiences of others to get an idea of what might fit your needs. There are plenty of stories here.