I have always had a low platelet count. Platelets being the element in the blood that is involved in clotting, that means that I bleed easily. This can be a good thing insofar as blood clots causing heart attacks or stroke, but a bad thing when it comes to hemorrhagic strokes, which is apparently what my mother died of, although I spent most of my life thinking she had died of brain cancer. That's what happens when you don't explain things to kids; they make stuff up in their heads and go with it. My low platelet count has never been anything that doctors have been concerned about, except before surgeries, but I will sometimes have blood pouring out of a new wound, only to find that it's little more than a scratch once I've cleaned the blood off. When they take blood, I have to leave the band-aid on a little longer than most people. When I was working EMS in Los Fresnos, I had donated blood one day, and a half hour later, we had an ambulance call. As I was loading the patient onto the ambulance, I saw blood dripping. Initially thinking we had missed a wound on our patient, I found that it was bleeding from beneath the band-aid that they had applied to my arm.
I wouldn't worry too much, Ken, except that I would avoid aspirin (and all other prostaglandin inhibitors) if at all possible. Stick with acetaminophen for discomfort if you must. Kale and other greens are not a bad idea, but it probably won't affect your platelets count--K affects the Extrinsic Pathway in Coagulation, as the vitamin K dependent factors are mostly there (see Factor VII). You are medically oriented, so here is an abstract if you are interested: Hemostasis requires both platelets and the coagulation system. At sites of vessel injury, bleeding is minimized by the formation of a hemostatic plug consisting of platelets and fibrin. The traditional view of the regulation of blood coagulation is that the initiation phase is triggered by the extrinsic pathway, whereas amplification requires the intrinsic pathway. The extrinsic pathway consists of the transmembrane receptor tissue factor (TF) and plasma factor VII/VIIa (FVII/FVIIa), and the intrinsic pathway consists of plasma FXI, FIX, and FVIII. Under physiological conditions, TF is constitutively expressed by adventitial cells surrounding blood vessels and initiates clotting. In addition so-called blood-borne TF in the form of cell-derived microparticles (MPs) and TF expression within platelets suggests that TF may play a role in the amplification phase of the coagulation cascade. Under pathologic conditions, TF is expressed by monocytes, neutrophils, endothelial cells, and platelets, which results in an elevation of the levels of circulating TF-positive MPs. TF expression within the vasculature likely contributes to thrombosis in a variety of diseases. Understanding how the extrinsic pathway of blood coagulation contributes to hemostasis and thrombosis may lead to the development of safe and effective hemostatic agents and antithrombotic drugs.
Shirley, that was exactly the first thing that I thought of, too ! And then was chuckling to myself because of Ken’s post about eating kale makes him depressed. Bleeding to death might make him depressed, too, though.......