Pro Time High?

[Gary Miller]

I just got my blood test from the ER lab and my INR was 1.9 and Pro Time was 21.8! Is it that because I'm not taking in very much Vit-K because it lowers my INR so much. I stay away from anything green, only because I'm already at 77mg a week to stay around 2.0 (1.8 - 2.6). I was hoping to be able to cut down on the coumadin, but I know I'll need the Vit-K to stay healthy. I haven't talked to my Cardio yet about this so my question is if I increase the coumadin to eat more Vit-K doesn't the increase in coumadin still have the same effect of increasing the Pro Time?

 

[Freddie]

Sorry to say, but your first mistake is staying away anything green. Eating a well balance diet includes greens - there a lot of good things in the greens that our bodies need besides the little "k" they have in them.

As for dosage, what ever the weekly dose works, is right for you. I wouldn't worry about the amount/dosage as long as I'm within my range.

Please don't worry about the vit k.

 

[pellicle]

Sorry to say, but your first mistake is staying away anything green. Eating a well balance diet includes greens - there a lot of good things in the greens that our bodies need besides the little "k" they have in them.

....

Please don't worry about the vit k.

A double Decker seconding on that. When are doctors going to learn to stop speaking like this? There are micro-nutrients and other benefits. Just eat healthy as you always would.

As has been mentioned here before, actually hyper-dosing on Vitamin K can give better stability to warfarin doses, even out dietary differences and give better bone metabolism too.

 

[Blake777]

And that is what happened to me, as soon as I started eating vitamin k and taking a low dose k supplement things started looking better. I have been in bad shape INR wise and some other things too, that happens to you when you don't get vitamin k. But I am better now, but this flu will probably mess things up again. A hematology specialists put me on vitamin k and told me to eat broccoli and he said I can eat ice berg lettuce as well. Wow, 77mg, that is a lot, maybe I'm reading wrong. It's best to have a home monitor if you do start green vegetables, so you can keep a close eye on things, just in case.

 

[TheGymGuy]

Gary,
How have you been? I hope I am not late to the party to answer your question. The INR test we take is actually called PT/INR which stand for Prothrombin Time (Pro Time) / INR.
Prothrombin Time is generally a multiple of something like ~10 to INR, so lets say my INR is 2.3, my prothrombin time would be around 23 or just around there.

Why am I sharing this, well, your INR is 1.9 and prothrombin time would be 19 or 20, so 21.8 is about right. See this for more details if you so desire - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prothrombin_time

How heavy are you, and how physically active are you, if you do not mind me asking?

I, for example, take 70mg of Coumadin per week (10mg per day) and about 180mcg - 300mcg of K per day from various sources (vitamins, supps, and food), and my INR is tested weekly at random days and times (I self test) and it is between 2.1 and 2.3, occasionally I will hit 2.5 or 2.0. I am also extremely active physically and am around 195 lbs. Everyone metabolizes Coumadin at different rates, and there is lots of research suggesting that topping off your Vit. K stores would keep your INR lots more stable than not.

Hope this helps.

 

[Freddie]

FWIW - ice berg lettuce has very low vitamin k, it's basically water.

 

[Gary Miller]

Hey Vadim, Its been awhile, I've been hitting the Gym 3 or 4 times a week for the last 3 months. Some weights (nothing over 150) and elipticle trainer. I went every day 5 years ago but retirement and BAVR interrupted that. I was getting back to normal till 2 weeks ago and now things are pretty bumpy again as per my Post OP thread. Anyway I'm at 6' 2" 225 and doing 30-40miles a week on the elipticle.

 

[TheGymGuy]

Aha, 225lbs and active. I saw some research sometime back where people with more weight on them, does not matter muscle or not, needed higher level of anti-coagulation. For me, my weight coupled with lots of exercise had me upping my coumadin till 10mg per day and only then it stabilized.

Great job on staying active, 30-40miles per week on anything other than bike is pretty damn impressive. Heck, I take it back, bike would be impressive too.

 

[Protimenow]

INR (International Normalized Ratio) was developed so that there can be an apples to apples measurement of anticoagulation. The INR is a ratio between the actual prothrombin time and the reagent used. In many cases, INR is Prothrombin Time divided by 10 - - but, again, it depends on the reagents used for testing.

The reagent (or the calculation) in my Protime meter is different from that used by the InRatio. For example, a 3.0 on my Protime meter reflects an actual prothrombin time of 39.2 seconds. A 3.2 on my InRatio machine reflects a prothrombin time of 31.9 seconds. Reagents, and other factors (the Protime meter doesn't want the first drop of blood, the InRatio and CoaguChek XS relies on that first drop for an accurate result).

I should be that active but, unfortunately, haven't been for some time.