why wont it go up????

[tabitha]

I have been in the hospital since the 17 but was cleared to go home on the 21st. Well I am still sitting here at the hospital because my inr is only going up by. 1 a day! They wont let me leave until it's at 2 and todays number is 1.6. Am i really doomed ro stay here another 4 days??? I will lose it!

Why is it not going up faster??

 

[Jkm7]

Have they increased your dose at all?

 

[dick0236]

! They wont let me leave until it's at 2 and todays number is 1.6. Am i really doomed ro stay here another 4 days??? I will lose it!
Why is it not going up faster??

I know how you feel. They made me stay several extra days due to a low grade fever....until I raised a LOT of hell. They let me go home, finally, after I agreed to go back to hospital if my fever went up.

Hopefully, for you, your INR may go up to your rane of 2 faster than 4 days. Try to be patient.......or when you get a little closer to your range, start being a "pain in the A--, like I did.

 

[Protimenow]

To me, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to imprison a patient in the hospital because the INR is low. They tried to do this to me a month ago after I had a stroke, and the lab determined that my INR was 1.7. (My meter, 36 hours earlier, gave me a 2.6). The attending doctor finally found a doctor who knew more about anticoagulation than he did, and, after a bit of insistence on my part that staying in the hospital didn't make a lot of sense, they agreed to discharge me with four days' worth of generic Lovenox. (In other words, they sent me home where I could bridge until my INR went up).

Suggest to your doctors that you can bridge at home, increase your dose (if necessary) while at home, and either self-test, or come to the hospital daily (or however often they're comfortable) for a repeat blood test.

If INR is the only reason that they're keeping you in the hospital (other than maintaining the hospital's occupancy rate and charging you or your insurance company for practically nothing at all), you should be able to convince them to let you go home and bridge for a few days until your INR gets in range. (Warfarin is very slow acting, so it may take a while until your INR responds to increased dosing -- just don't increase too much, too fast, or you may wind up on the 'INR Roller Coaster,' bouncing between INRs that are too high and INRs that are too low.

 

[sarahsunshine]

I really don't understand. Skyler was home for 2 months before his INR went up - he was just kept on Heparin for that long, and tested every 3-4 days on our Coaguchek Monitor.

 

[AgilityDog]

After my last surgery, it took WEEKS to get in range. Because of better bloodflow, plus the general issues with activity increasing, my dose went from 23 mg/week to over 30.
Since I have a history of wild INR increases with a 2 mg/week dose increase, I was on the durned lovenox something like 4 weeks after surgery. I'd have gone bonkers in the hospital.

 

[tom in MO]

I had to stay an extra day or two for my INR to get higher. I was in for 5 days and at 1.7, the surgeon doing rounds said I should be able to go home, but my actual surgeon wanted me to stay until it was within range. I made it to 1.9 by the next day and they let me leave. It all has to be approved by your insurance, so you have some outside assurance that it is not wasted money/time.

 

[Protimenow]

Extra days in the hospital -- waiting for an INR to go up -- ARE wasted time. Sitting in a hospital bed, counting the holes in the ventilation overhead, trying to watch a TV with no sound, and waiting for a person to bring another thing of ice water is not MY idea of a good use of time. Perhaps if the hospital had WiFi, an area where a computing device could be set up, and other amenities, it wouldn't be quite as huge a waste of time -- but laying in bed day after day because an INR is too low doesn't seem to be a good use of time.

(Also, FWIW, you have to wonder how much more at risk you would be in, if you weren't at the hospital. Are they thinking that you'll throw a clot and have a devastating stroke with your low INR and it's in your best interest to be at the hospital if that happens? I'm not aware of such risk factors so soon after a procedure---and if you ARE at risk, why aren't you ALREADY getting Lovenox?)

 

[Bina]

I have been in the hospital since the 17 but was cleared to go home on the 21st. Well I am still sitting here at the hospital because my inr is only going up by. 1 a day! They wont let me leave until it's at 2 and todays number is 1.6. Am i really doomed ro stay here another 4 days??? I will lose it!

Why is it not going up faster??

Patience, my dear....Slow and steady wins the race

I was also kept in for an extra week while my INR was slowly raised with the protection of a heparin IV when it dropped below 2.0
Be grateful that your docs are doing their jobs by keeping you safe until you are ready to go home.