son with low blood count

[coultie]

hiya my ds had to go for a full blood count frm which his results showed that he has a low blood count He takes ritalin and has done since october 2009 for his adhd ,and his consultant rang and told me i had to stop giving him it due to his low white blood count has anyone else had this problem or can shine a light on it as i am so worried and the thing is he touch wood is never ill so cant understand it

J had this exact problem with straterra, the other type of ADHD meds. It just meant having to have regular blood tests though he went back on the meds. Eventually they decided it must probably have been a virus that made the results so low, though there are still minor issues now.

Dependes which part of his blood count is low to be honest-is it his haemoglobin, his platelets or his white cells? if its his white cells (most likely) it could well be the ritalin suppressing his white cell count (having a virus is more likely to send your white cell count up not down). Lots of drugs can have this effect and its important to monitir this as a low white cell count leaves you more exposed to infection generally.It really depends how low it is for a decision to be made to stop the ritalin.
Hope this helps

I have browsed the net on this, but don't have any direct knowledge of it. It does appear that there have been reports of an adverse effect of ritalin being leukopenia (which is a low white blood cell count). This comes from the US Physicians' Desk Reference
ritalinsideeffects.net/
and some more info on leukopenia is at
www.buzzle.com/articles/symptoms-and-treatment-of-leukopenia.html

If you type "leukopenia ritalin" in google you will find more info

Also there is a US medical expert called Dr. Peter Breggin, who has written many books about the side effects and dangers of ritalin etc. and in his book "Talking Back to Ritalin" he mentions that leukopenia can be an adverse side effect of ritalin. An extract from this book, mentioning leukopenia, is at the following website
www.angelfire.com/md3/wholelife/SOMEADVERSEEFFECTSOFSTIMULANTS.htm

you can find out more about Peter Breggin by typing that into google and also into youtube, where he is on US TV talking about ritalin etc.
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when typing leukopenia ritalin in google, don't enclose them in quotes, just do
leukopenia ritalin
and you get far more results

thankyou all ever so much for your comments You have all made me feel so much better.To be honest after reading about ritalin and its effects i am unsure if i want my ds to go back on it especially if it means that it is going to effect his white blood cells which in the long run is going to reduce his immune system making him more prone in picking up infections.Oh dont know what to do my heads in a shed at hte minute i know school isnt happy at the fact that he has been taking off his ritalin but im more anxious in getting my sons health back to normal Mind you thankfully he very rarely gets a cold or ails anything. Once again thanks for the threads and help