Hi Jarno,
The major risk for someone your age on warfarin, as far as I understand it, is a risk from a bleed into the brain. If you bleed from a broken leg, they can usually slow the bleed with appropriate splinting and bandaging etc, and then administer reversal agents to return your clotting to normal while they operate on your leg, if you bleed badly they may give you blood products such as Packed red blood cells or the like, and then get you back onto warfarin. Its a different story with the brain. A bleed into the brain (ie a haemorragic stroke or a blow to the head causing bleeding) is far more serious. You can't apply pressure to stop the bleed, and the consequences of a bleed into the brain are far worse than a bleed elsewhere on the body. So when on warfarin they do encourage people to not climb ladders etc, because a fall and hitting the head can have far worse consequences when taking warfarin. So, a your age, I wouldn't be so worried about the consequnces of bleeding if you break a leg, arm wrist collar bone so much, yes, you will bleed more, yes you will need some careful medical attention but it can usally be sorted....its about your poor old brain Jarno, and about hitting your head and bleeing into the skull and brain tissue. I don't mean the usual sort of bump of knock. Unfortunately, someone who has had a serious head injury and is also on warfarin and especially if the warfarin is poorly controlled and their INR is too high may not be too able to reply to your post, as sometimes the bleeding is fatal, and othertimes they are left with some permanent brain damage, but I am sure there will be someone out there who has experienced a head injury wilst on warfarin. There are also lots of people who continue to ride bikes and climb ladders while on warfarin, but just a bit more care and always wear a helmet etc etc.
I m active, fit a healthy, and was on warfarin for 3 months, and just to be safe I avoided the skate board, bike riding and climbing ladders....just in case. I was also very carful to always hold on whilst going up and down stairs, as I was also ona couple of other medications that can make you unsteady. Unfortunately I had a car accident, and did get my head shaken badly and had some short term (a few minutes) memory loss and was quite shaken and because I was on warfarin they took a cautious approach and did a CT of my head, just to be sure that I didn't have a bleed in my brain. If I wasn't on warfarin they would not have dne a CT of my head/brain. Anyway, thankfully it was all ok, but it just reinforced to me that when on warfarin you are at an increased risk of brain bleeding.
It depends on what sports you are playing Jarno, the bigest concern would be with sports that have high impact velocities and where you can hit your head badly..eg grid iron, car racing, rugby league, kick boxing, cage fighting, etc. Avoid these sorts of sports and otehrwise protect your head and you will be ok.
