Low Vitamin D levels and low platelet levels

Great news Barb. So glad to hear. I too am off to the dr. today for more blood work and to find out why I always feel this chill..I will let you know..So happy for you. It is such a relief.

Barb5454 said:

donnarush

Yes please let us know what the dr says

Hi again everyone. Went to medical oncologist yesterday. He had no explanation for my on going chills and didn't offer any help. Wrote me a presciption for Vitamin D. Still doesn't believe the radiation did this to me. Are you kidding???He didn't offer any scans, just said he would see me in a year.   I don't know. I think I should go somewhere else for another opinion. We all know our bodies. I know that something just isn't quite right.He left with saying just take care ofyour bones. I have said it before, I am not the typical candidate for osteoporosis. I am 5'10" with a weight of 170. Not smalled framed at all...so, with that said, I am still as confused as I was yesterday. If anyone can offer any help, it would be greatly appreciated.

My best to all of you

Donna

Barb5454 - At three months post-mitomycin, my platelets dropped from 120,000 to 35,000. Bruising was evident. The oncologist stopped some meds - no improvement. So she put me on high dose prednisone and a long weaning schedule. After three months of regaining my weight back, dang it, I slowy climbed up to 124,000 and my last platelet count was 102,000. (I really was normal before all the cancer ttreatment started at 240,000 - normal is about 140,000 to 400,000.) I finally succumbed to my oncologist's pleas and submitted to a bone marrow biopsy - but no cell formation problems found. No hepatitis, no nothing.

I saw the allergist (she deals in autoimmunities). She said that "idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura" is suprisingly common. "Idiopathic" means that a cause is never identified. Although it could be an autoimmune condition where my spleen doesn't recognize that the platelets are mine and begins destroying them as though they are foriegn bodies, she said only time would tell. (I already had rheumatic fever, which is an autoimmune disease, so I'm more likely to have others.) Happily, in the big majority of cases, the person is treated with prednisone, it goes away, and never returns.

There's another member of this forum who had "thrombotic thrombocytopenia purpura" three months post-mitomycin, a much more serious condition that can be fatal if untreated. She was hospitalized and treated with plasmaphoresis for about a week. She is fine now, as I understand it. If either of us had this form of thrombocytopenia, we would not be able to sit here typing and reading.

Since this happened to me so soon after cancer treatment ended, it's hard not to think that there's a connection, but since it's not so uncommon, it could just be a big fat coincidence. And if my Vitamin D level was checked, nobody ever mentioned it to me.