Platelet Count Dropping

I saw medical questions on this site and thought it was worth a shot. First, I have no income or medical coverage, so asking a Dr is out. A year ago, I had blood work done at a clinic and my platelets were 287 (I’m assuming 287,000), which I know is still well in the “good” range. However, 6 months ago, they’d dropped to 278, which is still not drastic. I paid a private lab for tests recently hoping it would help my case to get Medicaid. My platelets are down to 235 now. I’m not a Dr, but a drop of 52,000 platelets in less than a year seems significant to me. I know I’m anemic due to kidney damage from uncontrolled diabetes. I’m not really finding any answers online as to why they’ve dropped so much. I was concerned about Leukemia as I have mild petechia all over my body, anemia, extremely fatigued, headaches and many more symptoms. Unfortunately, the lab I went to no longer does the blood smear test for Leukemia, so I’m in the dark. Any thoughts?

Did you check the normal range? I’m pretty sure you’re still well within normal limits; the NIH says 150,000 - 400,000.

What Ferret said. The kind of variation you report could be seen with the same sample run on different machines as well.

Moderator Action

Welcome to the SDMB, rt66gv. Questions seeking medical advice and opinion belong in the In My Humble Opinion forum. I will move the thread there for you. Please note that the opinions you get there are not a substitute for real professional medical advice.

Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.

I just picked out a random study patient’s records, from a study that we do regular, frequent blood testing during. This patient had platelets drop by 47,000 between two tests only two months apart.

But if you look at the ping-pong levels of platelet tests done every couple of months over the course of a few years, you can see them go up and down each time; next time, it’s back up to near the same platelet result as at the first visit. And all of these platelet lab results were in the normal range, and the doctor didn’t mark anything as being wrong with them.

I am a doctor. I don’t worry about most variations of platelet levels if they’re within the normal range.

However, your comments about uncontrolled diabetes are worrisome, and I encourage you to focus on getting that under control. Don’t worry about unlikely diagnoses like Leukemia when you already have a significant illness which needs attention.

I hope you are able to get healthcare soon, and get evaluated by a health care provider. The internet is a poor substitute.