Chemo/Rad complete but Platlets numbers dive

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vermont54
vermont54 Member Posts: 11
in Head and Neck Cancer #1

All of you have been so helpful, so I am asking for anyone's feed back on low platlet count. My chemo/rad stopped 2 1/2 weeks ago. Between last Tuesday and yesterday my numbers went from 170 to 112. They doctor was surprised so ran them again and they went down 5 more points in less than 1 hour. I was told this was do to the rad/chemo and they would watch it. Also they said they would be concerned if the numbers were less than 100.  Have anyone experenced such a drop in numbers and if so what happened?

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  • longtermsurvivor
    longtermsurvivor Member Posts: 1,842 Member
    #2
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    these numbers are of no significance whatsoever

    Bleeding problems are not seen until plateletts drop considerably lower than this, say below 50k.  And it is not at all uncommon with certain chemotherapeuticv agents, to have plateletts depressed for many months after the end of treatment.  Mine hovered around 80k for the best part of the first year, for instance.   The follow up is routine, I wouldn't sweat this in the least.

     

    best to you

     

    Pat

  • vermont54
    vermont54 Member Posts: 11
    #3
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    longtermsurvivor said:

    these numbers are of no significance whatsoever

    Bleeding problems are not seen until plateletts drop considerably lower than this, say below 50k.  And it is not at all uncommon with certain chemotherapeuticv agents, to have plateletts depressed for many months after the end of treatment.  Mine hovered around 80k for the best part of the first year, for instance.   The follow up is routine, I wouldn't sweat this in the least.

     

    best to you

     

    Pat

    Platet numbers

    Thanks for the information and encouraging news. Interesting what doctors don't tell you. Even when you ask them directly

  • longtermsurvivor
    longtermsurvivor Member Posts: 1,842 Member
    #4
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    vermont54 said:

    Platet numbers

    Thanks for the information and encouraging news. Interesting what doctors don't tell you. Even when you ask them directly

    it is unfortunate

    when they do not.   There are so many things that go wrong with our treatments that we don't need to be worrying about the little stuff.  There is plenty of big stuff to properly worry about:)

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