My husband had his platelets go down to the low 40's several years ago. (diagnosed with cirrhosis in 2004) and he took HR's supplements and they have stayed in the 60's and 70's since then. There is no way top tell if this would help you or not as everyone's experience is so different. After 15 months of TX, his last platelet count was 79 , which is really high for Joe. I also gave him high doses of melatonin which I read about on the Life Extension Foundation website. I only gave the melatonin while he was on TX and it appeared to work...the best I could tell. His platelets took no plunges during the 15 months and tons of interferon/riba. I wish we could have found a way to keep his hemoglobin up because that got really bad.
I had also read that shark liver oil keeps them up and we took that for a while but I read something that worried me and thought it could be harmful so we quit. The melatonin (10 mg at bedtime most every night) caused him to very groggy in the mornings but that seemed to lift after some coffee. Cause and effect is pretty distorted during TX though...he slept most of the time anyway so grogginess was hard to gage. Even a normal 3 mg. dose of melatonin might help a bit. It is cheap and generally considered safe. There was an article some time back that indicated it might even have some antifibrotic effect. Nothing more has been reported that I've heard.
Best wishes,
Ev
Wow, it sounds like you got caught waiting, huh? Once in a while HCV accelerates like this; it normally takes as many years as you are old to advance to this point.
I’m not sure about this, but couldn’t they transfuse platelets in order to perform surgery? I’d imagine they would be able to intervene and facilitate transplant surgery if platelets were the main issue.
Have you been evaluated for transplant yet? Have they given you a MELD score?
It’s unlikely you’ll qualify for any interferon-based treatment with platelets at 43,000; this is pretty low; IFN by itself can cause them to lower even in otherwise relatively healthy patients.
There are other, more efficacious drugs in clinical trial right now; the STAT-C class; that is, but they will be used initially in conjunction with interferon/ribavirin. Do you know what study the new doctor is considering you for?
With compensated cirrhosis, you might be in reasonably good shape for many years; we have a number of cirrhotic patients in there that have been Child Class A for ten and fifteen years, so don’t think you’re necessarily on death’s door right now. Maybe they’ll stop in and give you there thoughts as well soon.
Be very careful with anything a nutritionist suggests in term of herbals and such; be sure to clear all meds and OTC stuff with the liver doc first.
Best of luck to you, and welcome to the discussion group—
Bill