Many virus's will affect the counts, PLT's in particular, Lyvy was off treatment for well over 12 mths and contracted strep, it knocked her PLT's for a six, I also found of all her counts it took her PLT's the longest to bounce back once OT, they still are in the low normal range, try not to worry too much and hoping they bounce back soon.

Jenn

My child is recently off treatment now.  She was diagnosed with H1N1 last week.  This was after just a little ear infection - no other signs of infection, not sick, anything, not even a fever.  She was swabbed "just in case" and it came back positive.  Her blood platelets throughout treatment for ALL have always been in 300-500's.  There have been a few times when she was in the 200's and maybe twice in the whole treatment time that she was in the 100's.  A week after her positive swab for H1N1, her WBC had gone down considerably.  It went from 7.0's to the 2.0's and neutrophils went from 4700 to 500.  Doc said this is very indicative of the H1N1 virus and how blood work is being presented in these H1N1 positive kids.  Her platelets have been holding steady at about 350 for the past 6 months.  During that last blood draw, her platelets had been around 230.  That is still in normal range and to many, it wouldn't be of significance, but to my daugther, it is lower.  I'm assuming it is safe to say that the virus caused them to do this and like others say, platelets are sensitive to fevers and viruses.  Just hang in there and I'm sure things will turn around soon.  What I will add is that your child's monocytes are increasing.  My thoughts are, if there was a relapse, then those wouldn't be increasing. Everything will be starting to fall.  The reason they look at platelets with relapse is that they have a very small "shelf life", about 5 days.  If there was something wrong in the marrow, those wouldn't be increasing and they can watch the downward trends of them.  But, with that being said, the WBC also has a small shelf life so if your child's are improving (monocytes go up first), chances are, things will be getting back to normal soon.  I've seen this happen before in someone else.

Well, I don't know if H1N1 lowers counts, but I might find out. My husband just took Seth in for blood culture. He had a temp of 101.2 and was feeling miserable. Our two youngest and myself have all been down with the flu, so that is what we suspect. Not 100% sure if is H1N1, but I assume they will test him in the ER tonight after they do a CBC and blood culture. I knew this was coming, was just hoping not. For all of you out there, please say a prayer that it is just the flu and nothing worse.

When my daughter was dx with H1N1, before she even got her bloodwork done - I had asked - what does this do to counts?  He answered me - "we've seen them going low".  I didn't ask specifically, but I'm assuming they are probably all dropping.  For my daughter's WBC and ANC to take a "nose dive" like that, then I can see what he meant.  If we were still on treatment, she'd probably have no WBC as there wouldn't have been much to start with.  Many kids, and like mentioned above, will have a drop in all counts with a virus - its the way their bodies respond.  I do know of another little girl who just a month before treatment ended, ALL of her counts dropped.  She didn't even have a visible virus but it was assumed she did.  They ALL went low and took weeks to come back up.  Their bodies have to fight hard to attack the infection and it takes a lot out of them. I notice his lymphs went up.  This is indicative of a viral infection too.  I would try to relax about this and hold tight until next counts.  I'm sure you'll see things on the rise at that time.

My son was diagnosed with pre-B cell ALL in  January 06.  He sailed through treatment until about 1 year into maintenance.  His platelets started dropping but the other numbers remained the same (his platelets were usually in the 300's and they got down below 100,000).  They stopped chemo for 2 weeks to see if that would help but it didn't.  His dr suggested we do a BMA and needless to say we were very scared.  The marrow came back fine - no sign of blasts.  She diagnosed him with ITP.  The clinic he goes to has only seen one other case of a child developing ITP while on treatment.  The body for some reason marks the platelets for destruction - it is an autoimmune disorder.  The way to usually treat ITP is immunosuppression with steroids.  So he went through the rest of maintenance without a problem.  He has been off of treatment now for 8 months (yay!).  He still has chronic ITP (his platelets range anywhere from 30-60,000).  We are waiting it out to see if his body will eventually straighten itself out.  But I will take ITP any day over leukemia!  Hope this helps and I hope the drop in platelets is just a reaction to the H1N1.  Keep us posted!