[Hopeful]

Hi Marmab,

I'd strongly encourage you (and all MDS/AA patients) to track your blood counts in a Excel spreadsheet. There is a nice charting function with Excel that can help you (and your doctor) look for trends. If you are not familiar with Excel and would like a template to get started, let me know and I'll post one here. In the spreadsheet, you can note your cyclosporine dosage, transfusions, as well as when you are sick. Believe me, it makes a huge difference over the long run in figuring out what is going on. It is easy to get caught up in arbitrary spikes up/down when you are getting your blood drawn weekly, or twice a week. The trends are what is important though.

Looking back at my counts, I was transfusion independent about 4 weeks after ATG. I also had a spike up to 41 about 8 weeks after ATG. My platelets then decreased to the 30's and sat there for 5-6 months before slowly rising.

So perhaps you did have a response like mine and the viral infections are really taxing your marrow right now. I've see drops in my platelets of 30% when I've been ill. Since you are in the early stage of recovery, you have less reserves to make new platelets if the current ones are being chewed up rapidly by a virus. It is also believed that viruses can also trigger relapse even once the marrow has "recovered".

Get well soon and good luck at your appointment tomorrow!