Recent content by LondonAndy

I fear you may have misread my post. My source was my surgeon, not Google - those are a couple of articles that, as I said, were some amateur sleuthing neither of which referenced the combined effect of insulin and statins.

My journey through AVR started over 10 years ago now, in 2014, and was needed because of severe stenosis. I don't know why I haven't thought to post this sooner, but a search of past topics doesn't seem to suggest this has been discussed, so here goes, perhaps of interest to those in the waiting...

Like Finland, I can only get warfarin by prescription here in the UK. I can order 1mg, 3mg and 5mg tablets, precisely because of the need to make small dose adjustments. If I can find official guidelines that advise doctors to prescribe this variety of tablets I will add it here.

If you have your own INR test meter, you can be flexible with what you eat (with a few to exercise caution over, such as grapefruit and cranberry juice). Experiment with what you eat, test your INR and adjust the dose if needed. You are not dependent on medical personnel, and can take...

"too late"? Just because your INR goes outside of range does not mean you are immediately at risk of a stroke etc. Yes, risk starts to increase, but I think you will find it is generally accepted that the risk is low for a good few days.

Colds decrease my INR (for example, my INR fell by 1.1 in a week recently. Antibiotics increase INR, and my holiday fun can go either way.

Side sleeper here, too, and hate sleeping on my back! But I found an electric recliner really helped - you can make very small adjustments to the angle and get comfortable, which I found I had to do frequently at first. My surgery was over 10 years ago now, and the first 10 days after I was...

Wow! I too eat many of those foods regularly, and no particular effect on my INR. As others have said: get yourself a test meter that you can use at home (the CoaguChek XS and CoaguChek INRange are those recommended here in the UK, both manufactured by Roche) and test weekly. That way, if...

There are no concerns about warfarin and sunbathing, according to our NHS side effects report. I shall be sunbathing with gay abandon in a couple of weeks' time.

I haven't shaved for years, preferring to have a trimmed beard, so I might be wrong but isn't a double-edge razor simply one with a blade on both sides? So it has the convenience of a fresh blade being readily available, but otherwise it's still only a single blade when shaving? If so, I can't...

I do believe the time before surgery is the worst - it is fear of the unknown, and is entirely understandable. In my case, 10 years ago, the symptoms progressed to shortness of breath on exertion, caused by the heart struggling to pump blood through the almost-blocked valve. Even that period...

Williams Medical Supplies are the official Roche distributor in the UK and Ireland. The price is what a UK person would pay - I am not sure they will supply to other countries, but they are 100% legitimate.

I have never been asked about my valve when having an MRI, and I have had several, though it is possible that because of our National Health Service, with records shared at least among local hospitals, they had checked my valve out without me knowing. However, I also ended up with a pacemaker...

It does seem odd that the sound has increased well after surgery, so I agree: worth discussing with a cardiologist, or your surgeon.

You can get the CoaguChek "Softclix" lancets here, but for some reason although they are the official Roche distributor, they don't sell the pen! However, there's one on eBay.