1.1?!!!!

[Julian]

I'm so glad your INR is inching its way back up! Wow that must of been stressful. I agree, people taking anti coags should have some type of free clinic help like pregnant women and free pregnancy test. I have some young friends that happen to be girls and they have a "women's" version of medi-cal that allows them to get all these women test for free every year including pregnancy related stuff. I'm not saying free healthcare I'm talking about a small group of people that take a drug that can be very dangerous when not in control. Oh well, I'll shut my mouth here I'm not trying to get political I would be frustrated too if I was in your situation. I was running without anti coags for a 5 days after surgery, just aspirin as they were trying to get my rhythm in control, finally after putting in a pacemaker on Wednesday I started coumadin that night. Here we are Friday night, I have my first blood test on Monday, I'm believing I'll be in theraputic range by then.

My doctors at the hospital seem to think that the chances of having a stoke with a bi leaflet valve is very low within a year with no meds, I wasn't as confident and asked everyday when I would be put back on coumadin. No excuse but at least you know the "numbers" are on your side. I can only imagine how many people on this forum have been out of range over the many years and never knew it because it resolved itself between tests in a 2 week or month time span.

 

[Protimenow]

Cris:

As soon as I suspected that the supplement may have caused my INR to drop, I stopped it immediately. I still don't know what caused my INR to crash like it did, or why it took almost a week to start climbing back (even though I increased my dose on the day I discovered the problem). I'm slightly suspicious that one of the blister packs of warfarin may have been ineffective, causing the drop. I went back to Barr warfarin. (The reason I was using Indian warfarin wasn't entirely financial -- I was splitting 10 and 4 mg pills to get 5 and 2, and was concerned that my dog sniffed up some crumbs that had broken off the pills and her INR shot up.

Julian: Yes, it was quite stressful -- especially with advice that I had to immediately bridge. Good advice -- but a bit misguided in my situation. I did some research and reported on it in this thread -- and in my situation - bileaflet valve nearly 20 years old -- the risk was much lower than if I had more than one mechanical valve; if the valve was in the Mitral position, if I was less than 3 months post-op, or if I was taking Warfarin for a-Fib. As you noted, the doctors at your hospital also seem to agree with the Duke and other physicians. My risk of stroke was low -- but I didn't want to tempt fate and increased my dosage to bring me back into range (even if, perhaps, the range tolerated drops to 1.0 for short periods).

Now I've got to make sure that my dosage increases didn't overcompensate and push me out of the high end of the range. I've returned to 7 mg/day, and will test again tomorrow to see just how high my INR may have gone.

And I think you were probably agreeing with me that there should be special clinics for people on anticoagulants -- this is a public health issue and SHOULD be addressed.

 

[Luana]

If you don't have insurance, you probably have a community clinic in your area that provides low-cost medical services. You can find one here.

Don't ever let lack of funds keep you from getting medical services if you need them. Everything, can be negotiated. Many doctors are willing to see you at a greatly reduced rate if you pay in cash. Everything, from a doctor's visit, to lab work and hospital services can be negotiated.

 

[Bina]

Are you still taking the seaweed supplement?

Cris, did you type "taking" instead of "smoking"?

 

[Protimenow]

Bina. That was sure funny.

 

[Cris N]

HAHAHAHA!!!

Hopefully Protimenow's INR has reached a safe level. If nothing else this reinforces, as least for me, the importance of weekly testing. Even though I take supplemental Vit K to keep my levels steadier so I can more easily stay in range, I am still highly susceptible to INR changes due to diet alterations.

 

[Bina]

HAHAHAHA!!!

Hopefully Protimenow's INR has reached a safe level. If nothing else this reinforces, as least for me, the importance of weekly testing. Even though I take supplemental Vit K to keep my levels steadier so I can more easily stay in range, I am still highly susceptible to INR changes due to diet alterations.

My INR is in range 99% of the time; whether I test daily, weekly, or monthly.

 

[Protimenow]

My INR is back in range -- although I may test again to make sure that the increased dosage I took to bring it out of the doldrums didn't push it too high.

I'm almost always in range, too -- the 1.1 (for nearly a week) was a complete surprise. If I was testing every two weeks, I may have missed the drop until I was already nearly a week into it.

Although I once justified a considerable period between tests because my INR seemed stable, I'm now leaning the other way -- I have enough strips to test weekly, and it's good to be able to catch an occasional anomaly like the one I just went through, and correct it before it can become a real issue. I'm certainly not advocating knee jerk responses to out of range testing, nor am I suggesting all-too-frequent testing so that a lot of little adjustments can be made every week -- but it's good to know, weekly, that you're still in range.

IF you have the strips, and the meter, I don't see any harm to confirming that you're in range so you can respond if you are wildly out of range.