High Platelets

I haven’t had that - but I did read that infections can be the cause - amongst several other things.

Has her lyme doc seen this before?

Yes certain tick diseases can cause increased platelets. I had high platelets during my disease. I actually just posted about this in some detail in a thread titled "Thick Blood" you may find interesting.

But yes this can, and does happen with some tick diseases. Whats really fascinating is that other tick diseases, or even possibly the same tick disease, can cause LOW platelets in another individual or even the same individual at another stage of the infection.

Lyme disease and coinfections are amazingly skilled in changing the body's terrain to suit them better. Certain diseases can benefit from limited blood circulation by preventing waste from being removed and limiting circulation of killer cells. They hijack your body to eliminate threats to their existence. Most bacteria hate heat so they can actually signal your body to lower its temp so they can thrive.

In the initial stages of infection, it is more beneficial for these organisms to LOWER your platelets so the pathogen can circulate faster and reach more areas of the body quickly. It can circulate better in thinner blood. Then this same organism can signal the body to RAISE platelets once it gets entrenched. Because now thin blood is more of a threat than a benefit to the organisms survival.

So the same person can have cycling high and low platelets with certain tick diseases. It seems most people tend to go one way or the other and stay there. From my unscientific analysis, it seems thick blood is more common than thin blood with these diseases.

My platelets were consistently high. But my dog tested pos for ehrlichia, and his biggest threat was low platelets that could cause uncontrollable bleeding. His platelets were always slightly low and mine were always slightly high.

So there are a lot of variables. Sometimes its disease specific, sometimes not. The same disease can behave differently in 2 different people depending on the terrain it wants to inhabit and what it needs to do to make that terrain more inhabitable.

Yes, mom's blood is thick. It seems that with these doctors who are not familiar with Lyme disease, that they know something is wrong with the person, but don't know what and they are looking for everything and testing for everything except Lyme disease which is causing all of the symptoms. Even when the person tells the doctor about a tick bite or that they may think they have Lyme disease and it's various co-infections.

That's interesting—when I was sick I had to do a lot of bloodwork sometimes, and I would always feel better after having blood drawn.