My platelets went to normal when I stopped smoking.

I would like the recipe for more platelets please. They are currently at 90 - which is amazingly high for me, but they have been down in the teens before. Made open brain surgery especially tricky.

I have been a non-smoker for the last five or so years, but it was when I was smoking that they got really low.

Lyn

Hi, all. My platelets go up because of a genetic mutation to a cell line in the bone marrow.
Also red cells go up. This is called Polycythemia. It has been reclassified by World Health Organization as cancer, even though the cells are not malignant. So eating fish or regulating smoking would not probably help.
I used to be a light smoker 28 years ago, but that was long long before the MPN mutation.
Eddie, I have found I cannot eat fish, alas, as I would like to eat it, and used to eat it.
I grew up eating salmon 3 times a week in Seattle. But present day fish I don't tolerate, probably because I have porphyria and react to the high mercury content in present-day fish. I can tell from beginning symptoms a few hours after ingesting fish that something is not right--usually spasticity, pain in muscles. It's a subtle thing as I can get spasticity from other things as well.
300 platelet score is considered normal, I believe, Eddie. I forget the range but I'm pretty sure it goes up to 375 as normal high.
Lynn, there are some drugs to increase platelets in those who have Myelofibrosis, another manifestation of Myeloproliferative disorder. I have no idea if you have that or why your platelets are low, but a CBC from a hematologist might give some clues!

Hi Mariel

I have idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura - it was identified during my first pregnancy (which was 19 years ago - long before MS came to visit - and didn't go home).

My options as far as I know, are 'roids, or removing my spleen (though that is not necessarily a guarantee of fixing it). I have seen a few haematologists over time. When I had my craniotomy, they put me on massive steroids because they kept crashing in the lead up to surgery (out of spite I am sure, because I wasn't scared enough already ).

I am very grateful that they are as high as 90 now. That doesn't cause me any real dramas - other than a few extra bruises and nose bleeds.

It is really interesting that the autoimmune disorder (is porphyria autoimmune????) range is so diverse.

I really hope that p32 works for you. I can only imagine that the reverse of what I have is just as bad - if not worse.

Regards

Lyn