@garyr443
Well please let me know how that works for you over time. If cranberry juice can lower and keep down platelets, what a win!! Then you have to wonder how much juice is the correct amount and if heavy doses, one must investigate what the cranberry juice is doing. Near as I can tell there is "no free lunch". Everything causes something else.

@garyr443 While it’s noble that you’d like to replace medications for Essential Thrombocythemia with ‘benign’ treatments such as food and cranberry juice, for some people, that simply isn’t going to get the job done.

Essential thrombocythemia is a myeloproliferative disease with a high incidence of thrombotic (clotting) complications, especially cerebral, myocardial, and peripheral arterial thromboses. Abnormal platelet function may contribute to these complications. Often, initial treatments such as a daily baby aspirin are prescribed to help keep platelets from clumping together and forming clots. In some patients, with a high rate of proliferation of platelets, medications are necessary to keep that level stable. That’s where drugs like Hydroxyurea play an important roll. While some foods may help minimally to reduce platelets, people with myeloproliferative diseases, churning out excessive amounts of platelets or red blood cells, daily medications become valuable tools.

We’d all love to be able to just drink juice for our cures.
When I had AML (acute myeloid leukemia) I had a friend tell me all I needed was to drink raw asparagus juice daily. Right…well, my doctors called in the big guns from Big Pharma with intensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. Pretty sure the asparagus juice would have left me pushing up daisies from the underside for the past 7 years! Now I’m healthy, cancer free and here to be a mentor in the Blood Cancer support group.

We have to be very cautious when suggesting people ”ditch” the drugs their doctors have prescribed. That goes against the Community Guidelines of Connect. We are not medical professionals so we cannot diagnose or offer treatments. But we can use our personal experiences to share what has worked for us.

I wish you well with your cranberry juice experiment. But I do want to caution you that cranberries contain oxalates which can increase oxalate excretion in urine, potentially contributing to stone formation. For people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) such as yourself, cranberry juice might pose risks. Kidneys affected by CKD struggle to remove potassium from the blood, and high potassium levels can lead to serious heart and muscle problems.

You’ve made several comments about your 4 doctors informing you that you have kidney disease with a rating of 3B. But since you’re not having any symptoms, you really don’t believe them. They cautioned you about the amounts of protein in your blood from your Keto diet.

Kidney disease is referred to as the Silent Killer. For most people there are no symptoms as the loss of the filtering ability slowly develops over time. Until it’s too late and serious but irreversible damage has happened. According to the National Kidney Foundation patients with a 3B rating have ‘Moderate to severe loss of kidney function (that’s the ability to filter toxins) (eGFR 30-44 for 3 months or more).
https://www.kidney.org/kidney-topics/stage-3b-chronic-kidney-disease-ckd
So, we’ll all be curious to see how well your cranberry juice to lower platelets is working out for you. I hope you’re successful! If it doesn’t work what is your next option? Curious, what is your platelet level?