any correllation?

[sylviayasgur]

hi all,
my dad, who has a st. jude's aortic valve and a repaired mitral valve is on coumadin.
about a year ago they found his platelet count to be a little low.
once again, it is low.
does anyone know if this has any correllation to his taking coumadin?
any help or info is appreciated.
thanks so much,
sylvia

 

[Ross]

Nope and I'm not sure what direction to point you in either. There are so many possibilities.

 

[Nancy]

Joe had chronic low platelets. His was a combination of hemolysis and poor kidney function, and also unknown factors. He was under the care of a Hematologist for years and years. There were discussions amongst his doctors as to whether this was true hemolysis or something else. They never found out what the "something else" was.

I would say that his blood work was never normal during the past 10 years or so.

His low platelet count caused easy bruising and spontaneous under skin tiny bleeds which looked like purple spots.

No one ever said that this was caused by Coumadin.

On occasion, the blood testing method was faulted. Storing blood for too long without processing can cause "clumping" which gave abnormal results. When this was a suspicion, the Hematologist did his own blood testing right in his office (he had a large blood processing machine). Sometimes it did make a difference, at least bringing it up to the bottom of the normal range. Other times, not.

It was one of the many mysteries of Joe's medical problems that they never got a handle on, and he had more than just the Hematologist looking at it.

I could tell that his platelets were low just by looking at his forearms. Even the removal of a BandAid could cause underskin bruising.

 

[sylviayasgur]

hi nancy,
thanks for your speedy reply.
fortunately, my dad has no easy bruising and under the skin bleeding.
he has been seeing a hematologist who, at one point, wanted to do a bone marrow test (i thought that should be a last resort, since it is an excrutiatingly painful test and my dad doesn't love needles!).
the hematologist wasn't in a hurry to do it either, so that is a good sign.

maybe it'll be like with your joe, just unknown causes. hopefully it will go no further than that.

while i have you here i just wanted to ask how you were doing and tell you that you are invaluable on this forum_ thank you for what you do.
i think of you often and hope you are well.
all the best,
sylvia