What is it with people?

[Ross]

I was looking something up and found a police forum where they were discussing Coumadin and heart valve patients. As it always goes, the answers were far fetched and myth born. I decided to join the forum and post about my observation and correct all the errant information presented. I just went back and checked the post. One of their moderators deleted it, stating it was an old thread and that I should have started a new one .

I knew it was old thread, but geesh, people do read and I took over a half hour writing it all out. The moron could have easily moved my post to a new thread if he wanted too. I do it here all the time, but no, he up and deleted it altogether. Ever get the feeling that some people just don't want to hear the truth because they've been fed so much bull in the past that it's all they believe?

Did you know that an LE cannot physical be able to handle his job after valve replacement? Would anyone here care to challenge that?
Did you know that because your on Coumadin, you might get in a fight and have internal bleeding and die from bleeding out? God forbid you if you get cut on a fence while chasing a perp.
One girl posted that her mother fell and hit her head and died from internal hemmoraghing. OK, I can buy that one, but key words are mom and she never mentioned how old she was. I'd venture a guess she was 60 or older and we all know our vessels are not strong when were older.

I'm sorry, but I get so tired of watching people tell others heresay crap and having no knowledge other then what they heard from a friend of a friend who heard it from a friend, that it drives me insane.

 

[skeptic49]

Paraphrasing Jack Nicholson...

"They can't handle the truth!"

 

[zipper2]

Well you sure had something to do for half hour!!!

Come on it's Christmas,look at the bright side

At least one idiot had to read it to erase it

What else could they do they still don't know anything

about coumadin or advantages of using it, how could they

know to save a great post either

zipper2 (DEB)

 

[Bina]

Ross, at least you tried your best to educate.....I do the same thing in animal rescue, and some people just turn a deaf ear.

 

[Marty]

Ross, that moderator who monitored your post might qualify for one of this years Darwin awards! Merry Christmas!!

 

[Blanche]

What of info on Coumadin today???

What of info on Coumadin today???

Ross:

Do you believe that things have changed in the 7 years since you wrote this post?

I would like to think that people, especially the medical community, know more about anticoagulation today. However, I have not seen this to be true.

In the past few months, Albert has been in need of a urologist. We have been to two doctors who have brilliant reputations. Yet, both have given incorrect information about the "blood thinner!!!!!!" ie: "If we do operate, he will have to be off blood thinner for 5-6 days before the surgery."

Myths, be they fables or conjectures are hard to change....almost impossible.

So what's the answer? For me, the answer is think globaly and act locally.
When ever Albert is hospitalized or sees a new doctor...and when we got the new INR monitor, we take the monitor with us and show it off to any medical folk we see. I figure, each one can teach one.

So, to answer my own question, very little, if anything as changed since 2001.

Blanche

 

[Dina]

I find it odd that he did erase it....kinda like what you wrote made
some of the information that HE wrote in the past as wrong as we know
it to be. I guess you made him look uninformed and he couldn't take it

 

[Rich]

Ross,
All we can do is look after ourselves, and continue to do our best to educate these dumbells.
I carry copies of the info you sent me whenever I go to a doctor's office.
The first stupid comment I receive from a doctor or their staff, I stick copies in their face and tell them to read. I do try to be diplomatic.
Gee at two and a half months after my surgery, I was doing heavy construction at my son's house. I'm not in that business, I was an engineer all my working days. Due to the size of his family, we converted his attached garage into living space, a tough job but I didn't die or bleed to death!
As I mentioned once before the nurse at my gastro guy's office was setting me up for a colon check. She said I must go off Coumadin for three days prior, because we don't want your blood to be too thin. My wife had to restrain me!

Rich

 

[heartfelt]

After being clapped into a hospital recently, I am now on a quest to find just one cardiologist who understands exactly how warfarin/coumadin truly works in order to accomodate my mostly vegetarian diet with a glass or two of red wine daily. Due to coumadin being the 3rd most widely used drug world wide one would think that information would be as readily available as information on insulin is, but I've found that isn't true. Everyone, except for one lone coumadin clinic nurse I've found, simply doesn't get it unless you religiously follow the printed indications for the drug, to the absolute letter, and who lives this way???! Not me, for sure and I suspect that's why I have had so many problems with being on this drug and why it's been so defeating and so depressing for me and recently has caused me to have an internal bleed.
Seriously, if it weren't for this forum I would have given up long ago and even quit looking at the benefits of still being alive to even write this post. So, I have you guys to thank, even if I am too right brained to figure out my %'s of how to adjust my levels on my own. It is a gift to me to be able to come here and freely seek sound logical advice that puts me back onto a human level where the drug must benefit me, not the other way around. So, you guys who get how it works, I'm in your debt. I remain clueless and prone to asking the same dumb questions over and over. Your patience is appreciated!
Happy New Year!! Let's hope with each passing year more and more healthcare people get wiser about this drug.
heartfelt
I have finally found a user-friendly coumadin clinic, but not as user-friendly as I thought b/c they won't allow me to use my own home monitor, so they also are still in the dark ages. I think my best bet is coming here for questions and advice.

 

[Ross]

I find it odd that he did erase it....kinda like what you wrote made
some of the information that HE wrote in the past as wrong as we know
it to be. I guess you made him look uninformed and he couldn't take it

I didn't search their whole forum, but I'm betting your right or else the guy is one of the decision makers on such matters and just plain doesn't want people informed of such things. I won't be going back there. That was wrong all the way around. If I did that here, Hank would have my nuts in a vise faster then I could say crap.

 

[Eva]

You did the right thing, Ross, and I too think the moderator erased it because it would show contradiction to what they were supporting and posting! It is sad to mislead people like that, but you did your part.

Happy New Year

 

[catwoman]

After being clapped into a hospital recently, I am now on a quest to find just one cardiologist who understands exactly how warfarin/coumadin truly works in order to accomodate my mostly vegetarian diet with a glass or two of red wine daily. Due to coumadin being the 3rd most widely used drug world wide one would think that information would be as readily available as information on insulin is, but I've found that isn't true. Everyone, except for one lone coumadin clinic nurse I've found, simply doesn't get it unless you religiously follow the printed indications for the drug, to the absolute letter, and who lives this way???! Not me, for sure and I suspect that's why I have had so many problems with being on this drug and why it's been so defeating and so depressing for me and recently has caused me to have an internal bleed.
Seriously, if it weren't for this forum I would have given up long ago and even quit looking at the benefits of still being alive to even write this post. So, I have you guys to thank, even if I am too right brained to figure out my %'s of how to adjust my levels on my own. It is a gift to me to be able to come here and freely seek sound logical advice that puts me back onto a human level where the drug must benefit me, not the other way around. So, you guys who get how it works, I'm in your debt. I remain clueless and prone to asking the same dumb questions over and over. Your patience is appreciated!
Happy New Year!! Let's hope with each passing year more and more healthcare people get wiser about this drug.
heartfelt
I have finally found a user-friendly coumadin clinic, but not as user-friendly as I thought b/c they won't allow me to use my own home monitor, so they also are still in the dark ages. I think my best bet is coming here for questions and advice.

Heartfelt:

My guess is that you're not getting the answer you need because you're a vegetarian and thus in the minority. Now, if you were to find a vegetarian cardiologist or vegetarian Certified Anticoagulation Care Provider who is also a warfarin patient ...

Who oversees your anticoagulation therapy, i.e., writes your prescriptions? Your PCP? Cardiologist?
How does the Coumadin clinic enter into this, if you have your own home monitor?

 

[westie]

amazing

amazing

Due to coumadin being the 3rd most widely used drug world wide .

i find that amazing; i had no idea it is so widely used.

if coumadin was as dangerous as my surgeon and cardiologist told me, people would be dropping dead all over the place!

 

[Ross]

i find that amazing; i had no idea it is so widely used.

if coumadin was as dangerous as my surgeon and cardiologist told me, people would be dropping dead all over the place!

I just posted in another thread to someone considering a mechanical valve.

If your not compliant and don't test when your supposed to, your asking for trouble and it will come. If you invite it, it will rear it's ugly head. For the most part, people are compliant, but there are still those few that think they can do as they please and have some major event happen, then blame the drug instead of placing the blame squarely where it should be, on themselves.

 

[gf1962]

Gees I hope our personnel director does not read that forum. Oh wait I am seven yrs post op on a blood thinner had a couple of car accidents while on duty been in numerous altercations during the arrest process. Usually I bleed more from shaving then anything else. That is until my wife and daughter shave their legs and look like they need a blood transfusion.
As always there will be myths out there. If you try to educate everyone you might reach about half the people that blood thinners and replacement valves does not mean death and distruction.

 

[Ross]

Gees I hope our personnel director does not read that forum. Oh wait I am seven yrs post op on a blood thinner had a couple of car accidents while on duty been in numerous altercations during the arrest process. Usually I bleed more from shaving then anything else. That is until my wife and daughter shave their legs and look like they need a blood transfusion.
As always there will be myths out there. If you try to educate everyone you might reach about half the people that blood thinners and replacement valves does not mean death and distruction.

I found the site doing a GOOGLE search, so if they don't want old threads posted to, then why are they allowing web bots to catalog the site? I'm positive that I'm not the only one that has entered police officer coumadin into google before.

http://forums.realpolice.net/showthread.php?t=43413

 

[Karlynn]

A Due to coumadin being the 3rd most widely used drug world wide one would think that information would be as readily available as information on insulin is, but I've found that isn't true.

Amen and amen!

It really truly causes me to wonder just how much more our medical community gives short shrift to, thinking they know enough, when in fact they know hardly anything at all.

 

[heartfelt]

Heartfelt:

My guess is that you're not getting the answer you need because you're a vegetarian and thus in the minority. Now, if you were to find a vegetarian cardiologist or vegetarian Certified Anticoagulation Care Provider who is also a warfarin patient ...

Who oversees your anticoagulation therapy, i.e., writes your prescriptions? Your PCP? Cardiologist?
How does the Coumadin clinic enter into this, if you have your own home monitor?

You know, I think it's nothing short of a miracle that I haven't had more serious problems than I have had!! At one point, following my OHS, I asked my internist (PCP) who was actually in charge, since it was beginning to make me wonder who I called in event of emergency, etc. She told me she was the person who oversaw all that was going on. Then later she informed me she knew very little about adjustments to coumadin therapy and to rely on my cardiologist and his team/i.e. the coumadin clinic assoc. with his office, but she would be in charge of all other decisions, prescriptions, based on other drs. recommendations and my input re. same. Due to the fact she has saved my life 3 x and knows me well enough to insist if she feels something is really important and I'm dragging my feet. I have complete trust in her in spite of her lack of knowledge re. coumadin. But, when it comes to my cardiologist who is utterly unaproachable, argumentative and unwilling to listen even when I am able to reach him (rare to get him), I have drawn the line in the sand and am on a quest to find another cardiologist. I doubt very much if I ever find one who is vegetarian and since I've been one since I was 12 yo, I've learned over the yrs. to not get on a high horse about it and to work it when I can and if I can't then to smile bravely and get through the situation as best I can w/o making waves for anyone, me included. I kind of think my best bet here will be to find a nutritionist who understands coumadin. The search continues.......Curiously, the coumadin clinic won't help me adjust my levels if I'm not w/in the 2.5-3.5 boundaries unless I do a $40 co-pay and go to the clinic with my home monitor b/c they believe it's always the fault of the home testing machine even though it's never been off more than 1 point. It's like punishment to me.
I am very happy to report today, that thanks to my not overdosing myself with 9(!!!!)mg of coumadin, per the clinic's suggestion and trying to figure it out on my own, I registered a 3.0 today, exactly in the middle and right where I should be. The problem is I just kind of guessed and didn't have any formula for how I got here, even though I have the cool chart from Lodwich publishing; it is still a mystery to me and very confusing. It's still like one giant story problem for me. I hate to come across as being utterly stupid, but coumadin has me beat for the most part.
I am so thankful it's friday today and there is a wkend so I can re-group. The hospital was a horrible experience I don't want to repeat anytime soon!
heartfelt

 

[Karlynn]

If the dose you are on got you to 3.0 - you're good. If it goes too high then you'll just take that weekly dose and adjust it 10 - 20%. If the INR isn't too high (over 5), 10% is the best place to start.

The same goes for a low INR. You take your weekly dose and bump it up 10-20%. You'll soon learn how your body react to dosage adjustments and know just what to do.

 

[KristyW]

Heartfelt,

Have you ordered the dosing guide from Al Lodwick's site www.warfarinfo.com ? It'll be the best $5 you'll ever spend. It may very well save your life. There is no reason that being a vegetarian should interfere with your anticoagulation therapy. I imagine that you eat fairly consistently. Even if it is high amounts of greens and soy, your warfarin dose is based on what you already eat.

Get the dosing guide.