Are you interested in raising awareness for immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) but you’re not sure where to start? Or maybe you’ve heard about ITP Awareness Month but you don’t know how to get involved.

If raising awareness around ITP is important to you, here’s what you need to know. We’ll discuss what ITP Awareness Month is, how to participate in it, and how you can continue raising awareness for ITP throughout the year.

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Ways To Participate in ITP Awareness Month

There are a wide variety of ways you can participate in ITP Awareness Month. Some are simple, while others involve more time, energy, effort, or money. You don’t have to give more than you feel like you have in order to raise awareness around ITP.

The first step toward spreading accurate information about ITP is to learn about it yourself. The Platelet Disorder Support Association (PDSA) has a lot of good data and facts about life with ITP, so it’s a good place to start.

Your healthcare provider or hematologist may also be a good resource. They can share accurate and detailed information about ITP. If you aren’t able to sit down and talk with them, you can call their office and ask if they have any quality resources they would recommend.

Once you learn more about ITP, you can share information yourself. This can happen in conversations with people or on social media, through text or images. The PDSA has an entire social media toolkit you can download.

There are a lot of engaging ways to share facts about ITP online. You can share basic information, like what ITP is and the bruises or nosebleeds the condition causes. You can also discuss aspects like fatigue, remission, and overall life expectancy with ITP.

Advocacy for ITP often involves talking to politicians and their teams about the condition. This helps them understand both the condition and the need for legislation that supports accessible treatment for ITP. If you can connect with an advocacy group, you might be able to join them for a visit with a politician and tell your story.

Even if you’re not up for that, you can still support ITP advocacy. You can follow the advocacy teams online and offer your support through comments, likes, and shares of their posts. You can also support advocacy financially, if you’re in a place to give that way.

You can raise money for ITP in lots of ways. You can do fundraising through social media, directing people to the giving pages for the organizations mentioned here.

You could also organize or participate in a Pump It Up for Platelets walking event. People pay to register, then raise donations for ITP before the day of the walk. On that day, they walk a planned course, taking photos and raising awareness as they do so.

Even if you walk alone or get only a few people to walk with you, participating in one of these events can make a difference. You can talk to everyone you see during the walk, raise money around the world using social media, and let people with ITP know they're always supported.

Purple is the awareness color for ITP. They chose purple because it combines calmness and fierceness, because it can represent bravery, and because people with ITP often end up with spontaneous purple bruises.

Sport Purple for Platelets Day happens every year during ITP Awareness Month. On that day, you can dress in purple, put your pets in purple, do your nails in purple, and more. The idea is to make people pay attention to ITP and even to start conversations where you can educate them about it.

If you want some ITP apparel, you can find it at The Platelet Store. Purchases from this store support PDSA and their awareness and advocacy activities, too.

One of the most powerful ways to help people understand ITP is to share your own story with the condition. Whether you have that diagnosis yourself or you’re a family member or caregiver for someone who does, your experience matters — and people want to hear about it.

Once again, social media is a great way to share. It can give you a lot of reach without having to leave home or spend a lot of time and money. When the people around you understand that someone they care about has a personal connection to this condition, they may be more likely to want to learn about it and donate to causes connected to it.

You don’t have to share more than you or your loved one is comfortable with. Sometimes, it’s enough to let people know that a condition people often don’t see affects you and has changed your life in meaningful ways. You don’t have to give everyone the details to get them to care.

ITP Awareness Beyond ITP Awareness Month

Raising awareness for ITP during ITP Awareness Month is awesome, but you can also continue raising awareness throughout the year. ITP advocacy often takes place at other times of the year, based on when government leaders are willing to meet with groups. You might be able to speak with local lawmakers whenever they’re available, even if it’s not during September.

People with ITP need support all year long, not only from individuals but from the community, too. You can share about ITP anytime, whether it’s by talking about it at school, having a booth at a community event, or hosting a fundraiser. These actions show the people around you with ITP that they're always important.

If you care about ITP awareness and advocacy, take every chance you can to speak, write, or otherwise share about the condition. Your words and ideas may reach farther than you’d ever hoped, and they'll mean the world to the people in your life diagnosed with ITP.