Thanksgiving meals and INR?

[coffeelover]

Hello Valvers,

Just checking to see if anyone knows the time period that it takes for an INR to reflect vitamin K intake. If you splurge over the holidays and eat a little more food with higher levels of vitamin K than your daily average, how long does it take for this increased intake to show up on your INR? How long should I wait after Thanksgiving to do a routine INR check? If you have a high intake on turkey day can you check an INR 5 days later and expect your normal INR range?
Thanks for your help!

 

[Freddie]

Don't mean to sound rude but, ..... really? Why worry?
Don't fret and enjoy yourself, it will all work out in the end.

Your INR should be fine after 2 or 3 days.

 

[pellicle]

about half a day.

Are you thinking of eating a case of spinnach? Washing it down with some vitamin K pills?

If not then just relax, enjoy the season and have a few drinks. Wont make anywhere near as much difference to your INR as forgetting to take your pills, and even that isn't a problem and will sort itself out in 3 days.

Enjoy

PS if you read this post
http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?41411-Oops-missed-dose&p=535366#post535366
you can see the results to INR of a missed dose. So if you (as you say) check again in 5 days it'll be back to where it would have been anyway.

 

[dick0236]

As the others have said........don't sweat it. It is unlikely that you will dramatically, if at all, affect your INR by having a good turkey day and any INR effect will be gone after a day or so.

 

[njean]

I too concur with the previous posters!

Eat, drink and be merry! Take your normal daily dose of Coumadin or warfarin and don't try taking more or less because of the foods you will be consuming.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner!

Note: Dick0236 and I, have been on Coumadin (warfarin) for many, many years, so we feel pretty confident in saying this!

 

[coffeelover]

Dick0236,Freddie,pellicle,and njean,
Thank you so much for your sharing! Your encouragement and info have been very helpful! I LOVE this site.I learn so much from everyone!
Will enjoy the big meals over the holiday and will check 5 days later as scheduled...
Thanks again everyone! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[scott.eitman]

I'm in agreement with the others. A few years ago, I ate a salad and then a pile of green beans and then said to myself; "OH NOOOO". Well I had my INR checked a couple weeks later and relayed my story. My clinician told me that green bean have no effect. The moral is many greens are not that big of a deal. Make sure you are armed with the right information. I have tested things, not necessarily on purpose, by eating salads every day for a week prior to a test and then the next time not eating them. The results were very similar.

Enjoy the holiday!
Scott

 

[Ola Thoresen]

I have just completed my "NovembINR"-project, where I measured my INR every day for 25 days, and also noted what I ate and had to drink (among other things).

This gave me a lot of background information about how quickly my INR changes, and how fast it goes back to normal again. The conclusion is that even after drinking enough to elevate my INR from 2.7 to 3.8, my INR was back down to 2.7 again two days later. So basically, don't worry. Some beverages might raise your INR, and some vegetables might lower it, but still, your body is an amazing thing and will "recover" after a couple of days.

For a full report, look at this thread:

http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?42132-NovembINR&p=544019#post544019

 

[Protimenow]

Scott -- no matter what you do today (unless you poison yourself and wipe out your liver, in which case you've got more problems than INR) -- it won't show up in a blood test that you take two weeks from now.

The effects of warfarin take a few days to completely show up. Greens and other things that can change your INR have effects - often in minutes or hours.

Because a test monthly, or even less often only shows your INR AT THAT INSTANT, and reflects, at most, what your diet, dosing and activities were for the prior few days, I've always questioned the assumption that a person with INR's that are in range when tested a month or more apart can tell you much about what happens BETWEEN tests. I'm a firm believer in testing weekly or, at most, perhaps every 8-10 days. For self-testers (like me, and many of us here), it amounts to a few dollars a test, and could reveal any issues that we may have with unexpectedly high or low INRs. A clinician can still advise on dosing or dietary changes, if necessary.

As far as Thanksgiving is concerned, the advice of others is good -- enjoy -- even if your INR changes as a result, as long as your dosing remains the same, your INR should be back to normal in a few days.