In thinking low platelets and severe nosebleeds are occurring in children who have had covid

[54321nought]

This is something we were noticing a lot in school last year, and now I am seeing it in children in my family and friends families during the summer too.

I have not heard anything about it on the news at all, in fact the recent news story about children not suffering long term affects from covid actually seems to be saying the opposite.

However, mentally adding it up in my head, I have now come across around 14 young teens and preteens who have started having very severe nose bleeds, or bleeding excessively from minor cuts - 3 I know have had blood tests and been told they have a low platelet count.

At first I thought the nose bleeds may be related to repeated LFTs, but that does not in any way account for the low platelets, the bleeding from cuts elsewhere on the body, and the occurrence in children who had not taken any LFTs

Has anyone else noticed this?

More importantly, does anyone know of a child who had this after covid but eventually got better and it stopped? (In at least one of my students who has this problem, the actual covid was 11 months ago)

YABU - you are paranoid / worrying about nothing/ putting 2 and 2 together and making 77

YANBU - this might be happening around me too.

@Lifeishitsometimes

To me, there's no point in speculating about whether covid causes nosebleeds or low platelets to a greater degree than other viral illnesses, based on observations of a small group of children. You'd need a proper sample, control groups, etc. Both my children has nosebleeds between ages 2 and 5. Big ones, frequently. They were also frequently ill with the normal viruses that kids have and loved a bit of nose hoking. If it had been covid times I might have presumed that it was linked to covid, but it clearly wasn't.

That is why I am asking on a public forum

@ehgust

"The thing is, it is not really observations based on a SMALL group of children, there is 1400 children in my school, and I have taught in big schools most of the last 30 years, so on a quick mental tot up, assuming a single cohort lasts 5 years, and I get a new cohort every time I change schools, that's well over 10 000 children...."

Just to balance your experience though, I work in a school of a similar size, have always been in a relatively high rate of infection area with a lot of positive cases and I haven't observed this at all.

Thank you. This is the sort of contribution which is constructive and helpful

@KickBishopBrennanUpTheArse

what, the nose bleeds? That is interesting

Yes the very heavy nosebleeds. I’m not sure about platelets etc I don’t know if he’s been tested. He’s also got swollen feet but is otherwise well.

Also the pp who argued you are scaremongering to suggest there might be after effects from a widespread virus and then argued that she observed after effects from a widespread virus is bizarre.

No one’s saying this is the only virus ever to have caused lingering symptoms and a few nosebleeds aren’t that scary or uncommon anyway.

again, thank you, a constructive contribution

nosebleeds aren't particularly "scary", I don't think. They are messy and difficult to contain, certainly.

[quote mumwon]@LuckyHarold do you mind if I ask what your range is? I assume its fairly low? Dh doesn't have regular tests as he is measures range of 60 to 80 (ish)[/quote]
Mine have been all over the place from 20 - 110 ish but they tend to on average be around the 30-40 mark. I think because they tend to fluctuate quite often, they bring me in more regularly. I've always been seen at least twice annually just for a check.

I was seen a lot more when I was pregnant too the to the risk of hemorrhage at birth.

This is really interesting. My dd (3 at the time) was diagnosed with ITP after going in to A&E on the very first day of lockdown in March 2020.

She'd actually been bruising really significantly since January 2020 after a particularly nasty virus and had another virus in March 2020 (when we went in to A&E she had a temperature of 39.9 and continuous cough but at that time, unless she needed to be admitted to a ward, Covid tests weren't being carried out).

There's no way of knowing if either of those virus was Covid, however, she has now got chronic ITP. She's still under consultant care 18months later.

Her platelet count over this time has ranged from 36 to 80 and goes up and down with no pattern. Her only symptom is bruising and she's not affected day to day, however it's still a mystery as to why she hasn't spontaneously recovered.

She had a bone-marrow aspiration a few months ago which confirmed there's nothing more worrying and showed her body is producing plenty of platelets, but the auto-immune response is still attacking them.

This is really interesting my mum is experiencing severe low platelet count after having two strains of covid 9 months apart. Steroids, transfusions and another immunosuppressant medication have not helped, she is fluctuating between 20 and 49 they are now looking at bone marrow samples. She also feels ok in herself, just a bit tired and has lots of unexplained bruising. She also has an additional complication of factor 5 lieden which is making it complex to treat and medicate her. Her haematologist has been seeing an increase of cases with low platelets who are not responding to the usual treatment so I think you are right to question this in your students. Interestingly I know of secondary schools who have also seen a rise in nosebleeds (I work in education across several schools) but hadn't linked this to covid, but this doesn't seem to be the case for all the schools and some were very hard hit by the Kent variant. A really interesting discussion.

Even if you had the antibody test for covid, it wouldn’t prove that it caused the onset of ITP

That is why I am asking on a public forum

If only said public forum had a specific board to discuss Coronavirus...

oh, it does...

Could you ask MN to move your post to the correct place?