Is Your ITP Forever?

ITP, low platelet count, low platelets, platelets low, ITP disease, immune system disease, living with itp, blood disorder, Chronic itp, platelets,

Feature image from DANIELLEKLOCKE

I recently found this image online while I was looking for pictures of activated platelets.  I could not stop thinking about it.  I still can’t…

Tattoos are forever.

I keep wondering about the permanence of this tattoo, and how it has come to so literally define this ITP patient.  Obviously it would need to be in a easy to read part of the body where anyone could find it quickly.  On the arm, this person would see it every day.  People probably ask about I.T.P everyday because of that tattoo.

I currently have a smart phone medical alert as the screen saver of my phone.  This allows my details to be viewed when the phone is locked.  I know many others choose to have a medical alert bracelet or necklace.

Looking at this tattoo has made me realise that I have always thought of ITP as temporary.  I have always believed at some point, I will be rid of it.

Patients with ITP have about a 10% chance of SPONTANEOUS REMISSION, and that research paper is quiet old, so I am sure the number must have gone up since.

There is also a very high chance that over a long period of time a primary diagnosis of ITP will be altered to a secondary diagnosis of ITP as other autoimmune disorders present themselves.

I wonder what effect this tattoo will have in the long term, for this patient.  The tattoo could outlive the diagnosis.

I know the ITP community is very small.  Perhaps someone out there knows this ITP patient.  If so, I would love to chat with them about their tattoo.  I would be very interested to know how this tattoo has changed their relationship to their disorder.

 

by Meg

Meghan Brewster is a writer and blogger. She is an ITP patient and launched ITP&Me in 2011. She is a coffee lover and a try hard dancer. @meghan_brewster

3 thoughts on “Is Your ITP Forever?

  1. reddingsa@hotmail.ca'
    sarah says:

    I was diagnosed with I.T.P when I was 6 I’m 18 now and it had went in to remission. I don’t know anything about it. and when I ask my family or doctors they say that it turned in to leukemia before it went in to remission, but when I look up anything on it nothing comes up. I don’t even know if it will come back or not.

  2. hma.globe@gmail.com'
    Hossein says:

    You’re wrong !
    This is very promising :
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16885043
    86% have a partial or complete remission after 5 yrs of diagnosis . even without splenectomy

    in another study , one third spontaneously recovered during a year : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5060020/
    note that they probably only considered complete remission , so you should add partial remission rate too

    Also most of those who fail splenectomy recover too , but slower :
    http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/104/4/956?sso-checked=true

    And also other autoimmune diseases are uncommon …
    http://www.itpsupport.org.uk/american/27.%20What%20happens%20to%20adults%20with%20ITP.pdf

  3. hma.globe@gmail.com'
    Hossein says:

    You’re wrong !!
    This is very promising :
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16885043
    86% have a partial or complete remission after 5 yrs of diagnosis . even without splenectomy

    in another study , one third spontaneously recovered during a year : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5060020/
    note that they probably only considered complete remission , so you should add partial remission rate too

    Also most of those who fail splenectomy recover too , but slower :
    http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/104/4/956?sso-checked=true

    And also other autoimmune diseases are uncommon …
    http://www.itpsupport.org.uk/american/27.%20What%20happens%20to%20adults%20with%20ITP.pdf

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