I have a higher risk of bleeding
because I have a low platelet count.
Will taking special medication help improve
my quality of life?
Yeah, that's an excellent question.
You have a condition called immune thrombocytopenia or ITP, which involves
your immune system attacking your platelets and causing them to go low.
Platelets have a very important role in stopping the bleeding
so that when you cut yourself,
they're the sticky cells that actually stop the bleeding from occurring.
We have a new medication now which stimulates
the production of these platelets and bring the platelet count up
and because of that decreases the bleeding.
So what we did is we actually interviewed 20 children
with ITP involving them and their parents and asked them what they thought.
The good news is 19 out of 20 thought that the medicine works.
And over
half of them felt that their mood improved and they were able to do more activity.
When we looked at the platelet count, it was very low at 15
for the six months beforehand, but afterwards it increased to 100 afterwards.
So the medicine did its job.
When we asked them about any concerns they had, there is a concern
about the cost because it's very expensive and the timing of taking the medication
and then worry about potential side effects.
But the great news is there was less bleeding.
The children had less worries about the bleeding happening,
and overall they were able to participate in more sports and more activities.