triff
Active member
I've always been very active so was never going to let a little thing like a mechanical heart valve affect that, after getting the all-clear from my surgeon and cardio (after turning up to a check-up 8 weeks post-op on a mountain bike) I'm pretty much the same as I was before, except for the obvious precautions anyone on anti-coagulation has to take. The obvious thing to say might be "Hey, why not sell your bike and snowboard?", but that means the endocarditis won, and I'm not having that. So this post is to share a few things I've noticed about Warfarin and injuring yourself and hopefully to find out what other people have discovered themselves.
I've had plenty of bumps and bruises in the 18 months since then, but two that I'd consider more serious. The first was mountain bike related after crashing (rare, honest!) and whacking my hip, not something you can really protect. The graze/swelling was painful but didn't look like anything to worry about at first, this was one day after:
Then at three days:
So it basically continued along that route until I had a massive purple bruise covering half my stomach, a big contusion on my hip and an INR of 7.2 after taking two 500mg Ibuprofens on the first two days, which seemed to amplify the effects of the Warfarin. I noobishly assumed that because I'd been given them post-op in hospital they were safe - but I hadn't considered my blood was being constantly monitored then. Oops. My clinic kept an eye on things until my levels returned to normal. Anyways, after six days I had this lovely appendage, which kinda wobbled about when I moved, like a purple hip-moob:
And at three weeks things had calmed down a bit, except for a huge haematoma on my hip, which stayed for months after:
Yummy. I still have a scar and a bit of a lump, but this taught me a few things: firstly don't ever take Ibuprofen if you're on Warfarin (!!!) and secondly there seems to be a point at which injuries get exponentially worse on anti-coagulants than a slightly lesser injury would be, completely as if the relationship between the accident and resulting injury is less linear. Sporting injuries are unavoidable so I'm very curious if anyone else has noticed this.
So on to now, I'm typing this lying on my front after getting back from my second post-op snowboarding trip last night. On the last day it was icy and I caught an edge, slamming into the piste on my arse and to make it all the more fun, right under a lift - there wasn't any bruising so thankfully you'll be spared any photos of my poorly posterior
I'd done this a few times in the week and it was a bit sore (as were my thumbs and elbow) but this one really made it angry. I did manage to get another big run in, probably shouldn't have but hey, I blame the Alpine air. Since then I'm limping a bit and can support my weight/walk fine but I can't sit down properly (the 9 hour bus/flight/train home was lovely) and the pain has gone down the back of my hamstring. Two days later I'm just seeing how it gets on, I haven't been to A&E 'cos I figure there's little they can do, there's still no bruising and I haven't had any painkillers of any sort - but there's quite a bit of swelling though and a big, fairly hard lump which is restricting my forward/back leg movement. Think it's time to upgrade my crash pants to something with d3o - it's been looking after my knees for years.
So the reason I'm typing this is to see what other people's experiences have been after injuring themselves (whether sports related or normal accidents) and 'cos I wanted to know if anyone else has noticed what I did last night, that it gets less painful approaching Warfarin o' clock then more painful afterwards, I'm not sure if it was coincidence or the direct effects of that dose or one I took a few days ago, given the slow release time. Based on the hip incident, I expect this'll calm down in a few days but still give me a bit of gip for a month or so. I considered missing a dose tonight (I forget one roughly once a month) to see if that made the swelling go down, but quickly decided I should only do that under doctors orders.
I knew early on that this sort of thing would be inevitable if I was going to keep doing the things I love, so to hopefully show why the pain is all worth it:
<-- me
I've had plenty of bumps and bruises in the 18 months since then, but two that I'd consider more serious. The first was mountain bike related after crashing (rare, honest!) and whacking my hip, not something you can really protect. The graze/swelling was painful but didn't look like anything to worry about at first, this was one day after:
Then at three days:
So it basically continued along that route until I had a massive purple bruise covering half my stomach, a big contusion on my hip and an INR of 7.2 after taking two 500mg Ibuprofens on the first two days, which seemed to amplify the effects of the Warfarin. I noobishly assumed that because I'd been given them post-op in hospital they were safe - but I hadn't considered my blood was being constantly monitored then. Oops. My clinic kept an eye on things until my levels returned to normal. Anyways, after six days I had this lovely appendage, which kinda wobbled about when I moved, like a purple hip-moob:
And at three weeks things had calmed down a bit, except for a huge haematoma on my hip, which stayed for months after:
Yummy. I still have a scar and a bit of a lump, but this taught me a few things: firstly don't ever take Ibuprofen if you're on Warfarin (!!!) and secondly there seems to be a point at which injuries get exponentially worse on anti-coagulants than a slightly lesser injury would be, completely as if the relationship between the accident and resulting injury is less linear. Sporting injuries are unavoidable so I'm very curious if anyone else has noticed this.
So on to now, I'm typing this lying on my front after getting back from my second post-op snowboarding trip last night. On the last day it was icy and I caught an edge, slamming into the piste on my arse and to make it all the more fun, right under a lift - there wasn't any bruising so thankfully you'll be spared any photos of my poorly posterior
I'd done this a few times in the week and it was a bit sore (as were my thumbs and elbow) but this one really made it angry. I did manage to get another big run in, probably shouldn't have but hey, I blame the Alpine air. Since then I'm limping a bit and can support my weight/walk fine but I can't sit down properly (the 9 hour bus/flight/train home was lovely) and the pain has gone down the back of my hamstring. Two days later I'm just seeing how it gets on, I haven't been to A&E 'cos I figure there's little they can do, there's still no bruising and I haven't had any painkillers of any sort - but there's quite a bit of swelling though and a big, fairly hard lump which is restricting my forward/back leg movement. Think it's time to upgrade my crash pants to something with d3o - it's been looking after my knees for years.So the reason I'm typing this is to see what other people's experiences have been after injuring themselves (whether sports related or normal accidents) and 'cos I wanted to know if anyone else has noticed what I did last night, that it gets less painful approaching Warfarin o' clock then more painful afterwards, I'm not sure if it was coincidence or the direct effects of that dose or one I took a few days ago, given the slow release time. Based on the hip incident, I expect this'll calm down in a few days but still give me a bit of gip for a month or so. I considered missing a dose tonight (I forget one roughly once a month) to see if that made the swelling go down, but quickly decided I should only do that under doctors orders.
I knew early on that this sort of thing would be inevitable if I was going to keep doing the things I love, so to hopefully show why the pain is all worth it:
