All vigorous activity includes some risk of injury. If you bicycle, you can bang your shin on the pedal or fall off the bike. If you perform a few sets of isometric wall-pushes, your can sustain minor damage to tissues and blood vessels. When you're healthy, you never notice these minuscule injuries. They heal right away. But if your platelet counts are low enough, that broken capillary may become a serious bleeding complication.
Platelets
Platelets are a type of blood cell responsible for preventing and stopping bleeding. Strictly speaking, they aren't true cells at all but rather fragments of cells which can stick to each other and to breaks in blood-vessel walls. Proteins they secrete enable the formation of a firm plug to seal such breaks. Platelets also change shape when bleeding occurs, converting from the plate-like appearance for which they are named into round shapes trailing long filaments that help further to close broken blood vessels.
Thrombocytopenia
Normally, you have a platelet count between 125 and 400 -- or between 125,000 and 400,000 platelets per mcl of blood. Certain illnesses or medical treatments can cause your platelet count to drop below 100. The condition of having a low platelet count is called thrombocytopenia. Depending on the severity of the condition, a thrombocytopenic patient may have to curb his daily activities to avoid bleeding complications.
Isometric Exercise
Isometric exercise is a type of resistance training that involves pushing or pulling an immovable object, such as a wall or an anchored bar, and holding that position for six to eight seconds at a time. It allows the practitioner to achieve maximum muscular contraction and gain strength in isolated areas of a given muscle group.
Exercise Risks
According to the Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplant Program of British Columbia, patients with a platelet count of less than 20 should not participate in any form of resistance exercise. If your platelet count is between 20 and 40, you may pursue isometric routines and other resistance exercise, but gently and with caution. A platelet count above 60 allows for more vigorous exercise.
Consult your doctor about any exercise you propose to do for as long as your platelet counts are below normal.
Contradictory Findings
A study presented at the 2002 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that more than 50 rehabilitation treatment sessions of 25 patients with platelet counts of less than 10 resulted in no significant bleeding complications. The study concludes that, "The withholding of exercise and therapy based solely on platelet count without further evidence of bleeding complications may not be warranted."
References
- The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center; Platelets; James N. George; 2007
- The Ohio State University; Preventing Bleeding When You Have a Low Platelet Count; Feb. 10, 2009
- Quest For Muscle; Isometric Exercise Discussed; Joseph Krachenfels
- The Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplant Program of BC; Activity and Exercise; 2010
- American Society of Clinical Oncology; Bleeding Complications After Physical Therapy in the Thrombocytopenic Patient; Ki Y Shin; 2002
