Hidden Sources of Vitamin K

[Guest]

Rain,

Two readings that are within 0.2 units of each other are considered to be identical. This is not rocket science - it is blood clotting, a rather imprecise thing to begin with.

Also, remember that you are not measuring what you took last night but what you did three days ago.

If you forget these, you will be forever frustrated.

Think of a car with a gas gauge that isn't very accurate AND it is telling you how much gas you had three days ago.

If anybody is interested in reading about my oldest patient (Not a valver) look at http://www.chieftain.com/wednesday/news/index/article/4

 

[Rain]

ROSS!!

ROSS!!

If my INR was 3.3 I would think it was PERFECT. Why would you change your dose? YIKES!

I take a Centrum vitamin with 31% of my daily amount of K in it every morning. But I take that little begger at the same time I take my 3 ½ mgs of coumadin. Would be a real drag if for some reason you didn?t take one or the other!!

Wow... you think if I stopped taking the vitamin and stopped eating salad every day my INR may be just fine by itself?!! I did have nose bleeds all the time when I was a kid... they wouldn't let me join track, because everytime I ran my nose would bleed. Maybe my blood is naturally thin? Wouldn?t that be special.

 

[ShezaGirlie]

Go Alice!

Go Alice!

Good article Al...you must be real proud of her. What's in that air up there in Pueblo?

On the vitamin issue - I take a pre-natal vitamin since they're the only ones I've found which contain no vitamin K. Mystery solved..

 

[LUVMyBirman]

On the vitamin subject.... I take One a Day 'Women' which does not contain Vit. K.

Rain, I had nose bleed scenario when I was a child too!
My neice, age 10 is having the same concern. She also has MVP with reguirg. Her mother is autoimmune which can cause offspring to have valve disorders in the first place. My father is autoimmune, he passed it on to me in another form. Along with the valve disease. Which we find he has too.

My neice's autoimmune disorder is something that messes with her clotting factor. Can't recall the name? Who's to say you and I.... since we are 'autoimmune' did not have the same thing going on while we were kids? Bet you bruised easily too??! I did. Amazing stuff. We could write a book.

 

[Guest]

It is what is not in the air!! Less oxygen and very little humidity.
Right Rain & Kristy?

 

[Rain]

Alice is one cool lady!! I love her attitude.

Alice is one cool lady!! I love her attitude.

Right on, Al! I spent ten months with my big brother in CA when I was a teenager. It was really tough for a CO farm girl to learn to live with humidity, smog and the fast paced world of San Diego.

Yep, Gina, we could write a book. But I come from a healthy back ground.... My Dad lived to be 76 and my Mom lived to be 80. I?m the baby of eight and all my brothers and sisters are still living. None of them have major health problems... I donno how I got so lucky. I do have one older brother who had nose bleeds when he was a kid too.... but he?s 53 years old and healthy. It seems we out grew the nose bleed thing about the time we hit puberty. Although... I did have some pretty extreme bleeding issues after the birth of each of my children.

 

[cookie]

Gina M,
I also had coumadin induced tamponade after surgery and didn't find out what caused it until I visited the surgeon that did the chest tube why it happened. He casually said someone wasn't monitoring my coumadin very well. That's a scary thing to hear about a hospital. Now I am reluctant to have anything done that requires hospitalization. God forbid I have an emergency!

 

[Nancy]

Hi Cookie-

Unfortunately you have to be very vigilant and hopefully someone else will be for you, if you are too sick. I've found that there are lots and lots of monitoring problems when your regular monitoring person isn't doing it. There are also many slips when there is some kind of medical "hand-off" to another medical specialist. They may not be up on Coumadin at all and they might not even read the chart. Being in the cardiology field doesn't always mean that they understand your particular situation.

In my husband's case, the main problem seems to be reading the chart, and remembering what the recommended INR is for a double valver, as opposed to a single valver. Happens all the time. And there are some times when Coumadin gets "forgotten".

I try to be at the hospital as much as I can when Joe's in there, and it doesn't happen at just one hospital, it happens at all.

Sad, but true. It's a problem.

 

[LUVMyBirman]

Hi Cookie,

So sorry (for both of us) that we had to experience this type of negligence. If you are not home monitoring, it would be a great way to keep an additional handle on your INR. Between my husband and myself we figured out my daily dose. Not the doctor! I have been extremely stable on a straight 6-1/2 mg a day. If I swing either way......as long as it's not drastic I don't knee jerk and change my dose. Only reduce slightly for one day and it puts me back into range. Hope you are doing much better with your regulation. It's no longer frustrating for me, or my family

 

[ccrawford]

Another case of Ensure

Another case of Ensure

FYI - on the 2nd day following my aortic valve replacement, my nurse brought me my "healthy heart" diet lunch. To my amazement, one of the items on the tray was a can of Ensure. My eyes were not focusing really well yet, but I managed to read the fine print, and pointed out to the nurse that the Ensure contained a healthy dose of vitamin K. She apologized and I hope the chief nutritionist got the word. Chris