Hi doctor, My daughter is 8 years old. She has been suffering from fever for five days. Her fever is in the range of 99 to 102 degrees. When we visited a doctor, he asked for a blood test. The blood report shows that she is positive for dengue. The platelet count has dropped already to 52000 from 1,40,000. Please advise us what to do further?
Hello. I had gone through the data you have posted. Low platelet count occurs in almost 70% of people with dengue fever. Normally, in case of disease the platelet count may go low for four to five days and then starts rising. Low platelet count (<100000) has risk of bleeding like bleeding from nose, blood in stools, which will be even more when count drops below 20000. So, only when platelets less than 10,000 we may offer platelet transfusions as they have a risk of anaphylaxis reactions. We need to do observe for any bleeding manifestations. If bleeding starts, then we need to give platelet transfusions irrespective of platelet count. Kindly upload the complete blood reports that will give us the clue whether platelets may improve or it will take time. You can do IPF (immature platelet fraction) which also can tell prognosis. So as for now, there is no specific therapy for low platelet count except some studies showed eating papaya fruit and leaf extract showed an increasing trend. As there is no harm, you can give papaya fruit juice or kiwi fruit. Revert back with the blood report to an internal medicine physician online -->