What are Giant Platelets?

Do you experience prolonged bleeding time for a minor injury giant platelet disorder? Are you more prone to bruises, bleeding gums and nose bleeds? Well! Then you may be suffering from a platelet disorder called.

Platelets, also called thrombocytes, are part of a blood component. Platelet function is to initiate a blood clot. If one of your blood vessels gets damaged due to an injury, your body send signals to the platelets which then rush to the site to prevent bleeding by forming a plug to fix the damage.

What is Giant Platelet Disorder?

Microscopic view shows Giant platelet syndrome, Credits: pixabay

Giant platelet disorders, also known as macrothrombocytopenia, is a rare type of blood disorder where the individual is diagnosed with abnormally large platelets. A person with Giant platelets experiences abnormal bleeding due to the lack of the platelets to stick to an injured blood vessel wall. Giant platelet are usually inherited.

What are the Symptoms of Giant Platelet Disorder?

Woman suffering from nose bleeds due to Giant platelet disease, Credits: pixabay

A person suffering from giant platelets suffer from following symptoms

1. Nose Bleeds

2. Bruising

3. Bleeding gums

4. Internal bleeding like stomach ulcers

5. Abnormality of the abdomen

6. Prolonged bleeding time

7. Purples

8. Heavy menstrual bleeding

Causes of Giant Platelet Disorder

Giant platelets occurs as a result of being genetically passed down through families as an autosomal recessive disorder. Some of the genetically inherited syndrome characterised by giant platelets include:

1. Bernard-Soulier Syndrome – Results due to glycoprotein abnormalities.

2. Gray platelets syndrome – defect in the alpha granules

3. Auto- immune disorders like immune thrombocytopenic outputs

4. Glycoprotein abnormalities- velocardiofacial syndrome

5. Calpian defect- Montreal platelet syndrome

6. Abnormal neutrophils – May Hegglin anomaly

7. Some systemic manifestations which include Hereditary macrothrombocytopenia with hearing loss.

Diagnosis of Giant Platelet Disorder

Diagnosing giant platelet syndrome, Credits: pixabay

Recurrent and prolonged bleeding episodes in people may help in diagnosing the disease. A laboratory diagnosis which involves studies related to platelet aggregation and flow cytometry can help in the diagnosis of giant platelets disorder.

Treatment

Giant platelet syndrome has no specific treatment and platelet transfusions may be required in case of Bleeding episodes.

A healthy platelet count can help fix your injuries and prevent excessive bleeding. In such a case, you may be wondering how to increase your blood platelet count? Here’s a tip- Try eating foods that are rich in vitamin B12 to increase platelets count.