Bleeding like a stuck pig....

Hmm...
As you may remember, I have not had chemo, so I'm no authority, but I believe I'd contact your doctor to be sure that's normal.

*hugs*
Gail

jillpls said:

cold dry weather can cause nose bleeds
HI, I too get nose bleeds and I know it's in part to the chemo and Avastin. But to help I keep a tea pot on the pellet stove when it's going to keep moisture in the air. I also use "ocean spray". It's a nose spray that helps keep the sinuses moist. You can get it at any grocery store or pharmacy. It does help.

Brooks...I have...
bled profusely at times and for some reason now I can scrape my skin against any little thing and it bleeds under the skin and looks awful. It has to be the chemo. It has to be some type of thinning agent in all of this. I think the Blood count goes down then the clotting material is at a lesser degree of the ability to clot so the "free bleeding " if you will shows its head a lot more...Blood platelets , white blood cells or one of them cause clotting and they are compromised with the treatment of chemo. My Onc told me that while I was doing treatment if I was to start bleeding and didn't stop within a reasonable amount of time to head to the emergency room, I could bleed to death if I wasn't careful, so chemo compromises the clotting ability of the blood system......I beat around the bush long enough to finally get it said......LOL....Love and Hope , Buzz

Blood Platelet Info
Hey Brooks

I remember you taking Oxy during your chemo treatments, right?

Well, the Oxy clobbers the you know what out of your "blood platelets." Holly had it right below saying the average counts are between 150,000-450,000.

Oxy is not even supposed to be administered if your counts fall below 100,000.

So, I'd check what your blood platelet count was your last time and/or request another one. When your counts drop below 60,000 and especially below 50,000, any little nick or scrape will just bleed and bleed and take much longer to clot than usual.

The culprit? Your blood platelets are probably pretty low. Be careful and don't operate power equipment, or hand saws, or anything where you could cut yourself.

Mine got as low as 48,000 and I pricked my finger one night and it bled 2 days non-stop, so I know about this experience intimately.

Be particularly careful in driving your car - you don't want an accident, because that kind of an accident, where a major artery or something was cut, could cause you to bleed out - and the doctors can't stop it. CAUTION is the word here for a long time.

Just to give you an idea of how long it took me to rebuild my platelet counts back to a respectable number - I came off Oxy and all chemo drugs in Dec2008, my platelet counts were down to like 48,000.

It's Jan2010 - which is 13 months since chemo stopped - last platelet counts are 109,000! That's a long time but I never thought they would get that high again. Still could never do Oxy again, because one cycle and those levels are cut nearly in half and well, can't do it.

But, it's up high enough that my blood clots now, so that's a good thing. If platelets were to ever get below 20,000, which is rare, but if it did, a person could just bleed out sitting in a chair doing nothing. Blood platelets are very important to our health. I did some studying on this and ran it by my onc during treatment to gather this information.

Oxy can also cause a condition called ITP - Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura.

Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is a bleeding condition in which the blood doesn't clot as it should. This is due to a low number of blood cell fragments called platelets (PLATE-lets).

Platelets also are called thrombocytes (THROM-bo-sites). They're made in your bone marrow along with other kinds of blood cells. Platelets stick together (clot) to seal small cuts or breaks on blood vessel walls and stop bleeding.

"Idiopathic" (id-ee-o-PATH-ick) means that the cause of the condition isn't known. "Thrombocytopenic" (throm-bo-cy-toe-PEE-nick) means there's a lower than normal number of platelets in the blood. "Purpura" (PURR-purr-ah) refers to purple bruises caused by bleeding under the skin.

People who have ITP also may have nosebleeds, bleeding from the gums when they have dental work done, or other bleeding that's hard to stop.

Of course, by definition,it says the condition is "unknown." But we know, we had good platelets before the Oxy was introduced - now we're compromised after taking Oxy - Hmmm?

Time should help to heal those old Oxy wounds - that stuff is mean and it takes no prisoners. But I think you'll be ok - you can run this by your onc when you see him.

You can trust me - I'm a doctor
Dr. Pepper

Hey, Brooks, hope this helps you worry a little bit less - I've been through it first hand so wanted to share this with you to ease your anxiety.

Take care - Craig

DR?
Did you check with your DR yet Brooks?