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Hi Kat,
To my layperson's experience, yes the red blood does tend to recover slower. I think this is because our marrow creates all new white cells & platelets every week or so, but the same creation cycle for red blood is about 3-4 months.
I received my last platelet transfusion 7 weeks-post ATG, and my last RBC transfusion about 13 weeks post-ATG.
Do you know how your reticulocyte count is doing? I believe rule of thumb is they like to see it over 60,000 to indicate the marrow is responding sufficiently to the anemia. However, in my case it didn't surpass that until just this month, 29 months post-ATG, yet somehow I got my Hgb up from 5.8 to 14.4 in the meantime anyway. My retics generally bounce around between 20,000 and 60,000. At diagnosis, my retic count was 0. My body had completely stopped making red blood, at least for statistical purposes (they found a few cells here and there, and I suppose from those last bits of functioning marrow, hematapoiesis was reconstituted & my life was saved & health restored post-ATG).
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Kevin, male age 45; dx SAA 02/2012 - Hgb 5.8, platelets 14, ANC 200, 1% cellularity. Received ATG 03/2012. As of 03/2015, significant improvement - Hgb 15, platelets 158, ANC fluctuates around 1000, Lymphocytes 620. Tapering cyclosporine. BMB 20-30% cellularity.
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