How we beat Viv’s ITP!

Imagine my outrage….

I’ll never forget the day I got a phone call from Department of Children’s and Family services. They said that we had been reported by the pizza delivery guy because my daughter had numerous suspicious bruises on her arms and shins. They told me a case would be opened up. You can imagine my outrage at the thought of being suspected of beating my precious daughter. Yes…she did have bruises but I never thought much about it. I bruise fairly easily so I never totally realized the fact that my 13 year old daughter’s constant bruises on her body was anything unusual. I just thought she was a bit of a clutz always bumping into stuff. After investigation by DFACS, of course we were all cleared, but the bruises still kept popping up. In fact they seemed to be getting worse, plus she was getting a little red rash (or so I thought it was a rash) on her arms and legs. It never even occurred to me that something might be wrong. Not with our family…we have been what most of my friends consider health nuts since what seems like forever. The occasional cold and flu, sprained ankle, broken wrist…that’s about it. In fact I was always some what of a wanna be health fanatic naturopath throughout my adult life. So surely there was nothing out of the ordinary. We ate and lived better than most people. Needless to say I reluctantly made an appointment with a local doctor. My kids have been so healthy we didn’t even have a regular pediatrician that we went to. We went for a routine check up, and again we were turned over to DFCS for suspicion of beating our daughter. At this time they didn’t do any blood work, not that I knew that they should. After another round of investigations we were cleared again but the bruising kept getting worse. I took her back to the doctor’s office. This time standard routine blood work was performed. Her doctor said he would contact me in about a week’s time after he got the results back.

The day I’ll never forget…..

The next day as I was just going about my business, and received an urgent call from the doctors office, stating that I should pick up Viv from school immediately and bring her to their office to pick up paperwork and rush her to Children’s hospital in Atlanta. He said it was extremely serious and of the utmost urgency. You can imagine my panicked state. Of course ….my husband just happened to be working out of town at the time so that made matters worse. I had no idea what was going on. Fear was my partner that afternoon as I rushed to school and then the doctor’s office.

When I got to the doctors office, Our doctor told me that Viv’s platelet count was only 5 and it was extremely critical that I get her to the hospital immediately. Ok…what the heck did that mean? What was a platelet count any way? Whatever …I could detect the seriousness in the doctors voice. It scared the holy you know what out of me. I asked him what it meant. He said it could mean one of many things…leukemia being one, ITP being another (whatever the heck that was), lupus etc.. He said that she would most likely need blood transfusions and to hurry and get there. I was scared to death!!!! I went from praying frantically to fearing the worst then back again. Not our Viv. Our precious firstborn.

Any parent who reads this can appreciate the agony that I felt, especially any parent who has gone down the same road. This was my beloved daughter…there couldn’t possibly be something wrong. Please God, let it be me instead, I thought as I sped towards Atlanta .

After lengthy tests were done it was confirmed that Viv had ITP. Numerous depressing and heart wrenching visits to Children’s hospital barely prepared us for the landscape of bald, wasting children of all ages, some near death looking at the fearful yet hopeful eyes of the distraught and exhausted parents. If you have never experienced this yourself, I cannot even begin to paint a picture of what it was really like for others and for us. We were now one of them. A community…sick kids – heartsick parents. After many bleak moments in the waiting rooms and many tests later, a round of treatments were prescribed with Prednisone. I couldn’t believe that my daughter who came from a background of a handful of vitamins and a Tylenol once in a blue moon was now going to be what seemed like a permanent resident of a hospital of sick and dying children to spend the next while on a regimen of prednisone in order to get her platelet count up. This couldn’t be really happening. There was no way this could be really happening to us.

I consented with fear and trepidation to the treatment. It was absolutely horrible….Viv was so sick from that strong drugs..she actually said she wished she were dead. She couldn’t sleep…she hurt all over, she blew up like a balloon, she was so depressed, she cried a lot. It broke my heart. We got her platelet count up to 14000 then it plummeted again. And she felt worse than when we started out. It was then recommended that we use Ivig or chemo, and if that didn’t work it was suggested to remove her spleen. Not over my dead body…I thought.

Ok…I pondered…me being the natural person that I was, I would find a way to get on top of this without ruining Viv’s life in the process. On our next visit I asked her doctor what could have caused her immune system to rebel like that? Of course he gave me the standard answer of I don’t know, but this is what we can do to treat it, but there were no guarantees . You could have cut the air with a chain saw!!! I told him I was more concerned about the why…If I could fix the why maybe, just maybe Viv could get back to normal. He said he couldn’t help me with the why, just offer the usual standard treatments. If one didn’t work they’d go on to the next one. We left thinking about our options and talking about it all the way home. I can assure you that I did some serious praying on those long drives and those lonely nights before sleep. After many conversations with Viv and my husband, we all agreed that we absolutely didn’t want to pursue any further treatments if they could at all be avoided and we would turn to alternative safer, less invasive methods.

After some reflection and research, on the next visit I then asked the doctor if he thought maybe she had parasites or allergies or toxin exposure. He acted like I was a kook who just told him that I walked on water to get there or something. That’s preposterous he said. ITP is just one of those things. Just try the treatments to see if they worked. I then asked him what would happen to Viv if I did nothing. Kind of a wait and see type of thing. I asked him if he’d report me to DFACS if I opted for no further treatments. He said he wouldn’t…It was my choice. I then told him that Viv and I would take some time to look into natural options instead. Of course he was very skeptical. After many months of driving to Atlanta to Children’s hospital we said good by and I pledged to Viv that no matter what, we would get on top of this thing, and that that would be the last time children’s hospital saw our faces. God Willing!

During the course of previous months I naturally tried to get as much info as I could on ITP. I seemed that most of the data out there recommends the usual course of treatments. It was hard to locate any alternate methods. I did find a product called ITP helper. And put her on that. But it didn’t seem to be working. Then someone referred me to a naturopath who tried a whole different approach with saliva DNA testing and hair analysis.

At this point we were willing to try anything as long as it was natural. And I really did firmly believe that we could win this battle without drastic measures like chemo or spleen removal. God put the spleen there…surely Viv needed it.

We sent her samples to the naturopath. The tests were performed and the results returned. Lo and behold….It seemed that Viv had a whole range of things out of balance, plus she had a blood parasite called toxoplasmosis (did you hear that one doctor?)…And she had a severe allergy to wheat, dairy, and yeast.

What did I know…I was just a dumb mom.

A series of herbal preparations were prescribed based on Viv’s DNA. I also put her on a very strict, natural (and I do men natural) diet eliminating processed foods, wheat, yeast and dairy . I did my best to eliminate all types of household cleaning products that I knew to be toxic. There were many challenges ahead. The battle had just begun, but guess what?

After a few months and another blood test here platelet count was up to 117,000. Hallelujah!!!! So much for chemo and spleen removal. This was in spring of 2007. Then came summer…staying at friends houses, eating good ole southern cooking, not eating a strict diet…sneak trips to Taco Bell, McDonalds etc. In January of this year I had her blood retested …down to 89,000 but at least not 5.

I immediately got busy, daily rounds of various herbal preparations, cod liver oil, vitamin therapies, water filters etc. We made some very important changes to many areas of our life.

I had her DNA in her saliva tested just recently and guess what? HER FOOD ALLERGIES ARE NOW NON EXISTANT!!! Yes you heard that correctly. GONE!!!! There were still some minor imbalances that we were given some homeopathic remedies for. You can imagine the joy we all felt for Viv. She is so ecstatic!!! She can live a normal life again. She can have yogurt and cheese even!

But that doesn’t mean she should eat anything that she desires. She still will eat a totally natural diet. You know…it took her short life to develop these imbalances and we don’t want to send her over the edge back in that same direction.

I am so grateful to the Naturopath that introduced me to this technology. In fact….I believe so strongly in this technology, and also in eliminating dangerous chemical exposure that It is now my life’s mission to make everyone aware.

If you all would like to know more about what we did to beat Viv’s ITP, I would be happy to share it with you.

Click here for my Free Ebook:
Cure ITP Naturally