oops

[Magic8Ball]

First anti-coag mistake...

I bought some non alcoholic rose wine (very metrosexual i know but it tastes better than the white ) as i wanted to partake in the social aspect of drinking.

Well it went well, i had two glasses of the non alcoholic rose and two glasses of the normal alcoholic white.

Thought everything was fine.

Until........my wife came out and said "have you been drinking my wine?" and it seems like i opened the wrong rose and had 4 glasses of alcoholic wine

I'm getting my INR checked tomorrow...is this likely to affect the result adversly or is it still too little an amount to make a difference to a 6ft4ins 17stone male...

Regards..

 

[Karlynn]

Unless you woke up hung-over with your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth and very dehydrated (my New Years day - first since college - boy did I feel foolish), my guess is that you won't see much, if any, of an effect.

 

[Ross]

You most likely won't see any difference at all.

 

[davidfortune]

Are those 17 little stones or 17 big stones?

 

[Keithf]

A stone is a unit of weight, somewhat common in England as well as Austrailia, evidently. 1 stone = 14 pounds or so.

 

[hensylee]

I had to come back in tonight to check on you.

 

[davidfortune]

Yeah I knew it was a unit of weight, just didn't know what the conversion was. Thanks.

 

[Keithf]

Yeah I knew it was a unit of weight, just didn't know what the conversion was. Thanks.

No problem. It seems to me that in the early '80's the British only taught the metric system in all its schools and so that generation knew nothing but metric. Mostly it will only be the older generation British people will give their weight in stones.

 

[Magic8Ball]

I went to school during the 'undecided' generation where i learnt distances in kms and meters and weight in pounds and stones.

Since moving to Auz i now do weight in Kilo's so i'm 110kg but i thought the US was still old school with miles/pounds etc.

Should get my inr results in the next hour or so so we will see what affect it had...

 

[Magic8Ball]

INR is now 2.2 so i guess its time for a wine fest (only joking )

So on a side issue my inr seems to be dropping like a stone since the dosage change....i was around 2.8-3.2 when taking 6mg a day.

Doc suggested i change to 5mg a day and we compromised by taking 6mg one day and 5mg the next making 38mg a week.

Since the change i've gone 3.1, 2.5, 2.2 which coincides with me becomming more active.

With this latest 2.2 the doc's advice is to stay with the same 5/6 daily dosage but i'm not happy being at the lower levels of my range...rather bleed than clot kinda approach.

Now assuming i'm becomming normalised to warafin and becomming more active i think i'd prefer to return to 6mg a day and see what that does to me in a week.

It could bump me back to 3 or it could just keep me at 2.2 who knows but i'm not keen on waiting a week to find its 1.6 .

Anyone have any thoughts on this with me being 6 weeks post op, this is what i was expecting my inr to do 3 weeks ago but i guess i wasn't that active

The return to 6mg dail would make 42mg a week....does that sound too much of a jump, should i just spread 40mg across the week ??

Regards.

 

[Ross]

I'd try the 42 a week. You should top out at around 3.4, but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[aussigal]

YEP!...I agree...I'd do 6mg per day and see how that goes...

You will have increased your weekly dose by almost 10% which should be just about perfect!

 

[Karlynn]

I agree with the 6/day too. If it creeps up too much you can always adjust it somewhere in between. Right now I take 10/5 days and 9/2 days.

As your body continues to heal (up to a year) your dose will probably continue to creep up a little.

 

[doyo]

I also agree with 6 mg / day.
I remember your surgery was pretty recent.
My wife took 2 mg /day for a few weeks after the surgery.

As she recovers (better diet, more activity), we found we had to keep increasing the dosage. You will probably find it to be the same with your dosage.
4 months after the surgery, she went up to 8 mg / day (4 times the inital 2 mg) and it stabilized at that level with 5 % - 10 % minor adjustment from time to time.

Right after the second procedure (pericardial window), 2 weeks after the OHS, the cardio ordered us to reduce it from 2 mg to 1 mg. She went from 3.2 to 1.3 in 2 days. The cardio was promptly fired. Took 7-8 days to bring it up to the range again from that INR crash. It was the longest week.


We found that it takes much longer to increase INR than lower it. Her INR will drop like a rock if we decrease the dosage but takes 5-7 days to bring it back up when it goes down.

EJ

 

[Magic8Ball]

Well i saw the surgeon today and got my first thumbs up.

When discussing INR he told me that he'd recommend a range of 2 - 2.5 for someone of my age/fitness level.

This kinda throws a spanner in my 6 per day to reach an inr of 2.8-3.2.

So i'm going to do 6,6,5,6,6,5,6 or 40 a week so hopefully i will sit around the 2.5 unless i'm now becomming more active and need to adjust accordingly.

Whats the general opinion of this dosage and the given range, he did say generally around the world people get 2.5-3.5 but recent studies have shown this is not necessary. He also said there are some studies going on into zero anticoag for normal mechanical valves (aortic), i said not to volunteer my name for that study

He also reccomended getting a coagucheck and testing frequently during the first year to get a good feel for things then probably checking weekly with a monthly draw at the lab for a double check.

I'll go to the medibank office tomorrow to discuss getting the machine.

He also thinks there are changes afoot (in australia anyway) to have the strips paid for by the government as its a cheaper option than getting a normal INR test....we shall see.

 

[terryj]

My husband has the ATS aortic valve and the doctor said 2.0 to 3.0 is fine for his INR. We usually like for it to be a little higher than the 2.0 and we don't get too concerned at anything below 4.5. We just adjust his dose about 10% until hes back in range. He tests at his PCP and tests once every 4-5 weeks if hes stable.