BC-Tabithalyn

[Joey]

HI Ally:

I have a quick question I hope you can answer. I remember that after the birth of your son, you had a blood clot in your leg. Can you tell me if you went on Coumadin for it?

My mother is being put on Coumadin for a blood clot right now and I was wondering how restrictive you found it and what your experience was. They're telling my sister that my mom will have to be heavily monitored while on the Coumadin. My mom is 77 and blind so my sister is really worried about how it's going to be, trying to monitor whether she's having problems with the amount of Coumadin she's on.

I'd appreciate any info and best of luck BTW for a big positive for you this month.

Thanks.

[Tabithalyn]

Joey - thanks ....I'm posting above about me.

About mom - Coumadin- yes I was put on it -over a year on it. It is considered a very safe form of bloodthinner -just a pill a day. The monitoring involves weekly blood draws for the first while -they test your INR level (which has to do with the blood thickness) -the reason is such a popular choice for heart patients and others susceptible to clotting is b/c it is the only med that they can actually track thru this particular test (INR).

The INR has to be set/stable at a certain level - not too thin / not too thick - I think they prefer a level of between 2-3 if I can remember correctly - my home care nurse who helped out with the DVT situation did give me a wee pamphlet about it all... I may be able to dig it out if you need more resources on it.

otherwise once they do find the right dosage (ie., I was stopped at 5mg -they had bumped me down to 4mg but I needed to go back up to 5 and then stablized there) -then it is usually only every 3 wks for a blood test. That is it for monitoring -of course you do have to be careful of not cutting yourself again (same as us on Heparin) and otherwise I noted none other side effects - I used to think it made me feel somewhat tired and weak but I'm not 100% sure if that wasn't just life happening too!

hope I helped....
Ally

[Joey]

Thanks Ally:

I'm going to forward the info to my sister. My mom lives with her and on top of looking after 3 little boys, my sister feels a little overwhelmed with fear at looking after the blood clot issue with my mom.

[Tabithalyn]

Ok Joey - I could understand (sorta- pls. note discouragement with my ttc#2 efforts) how it must be with the 3 young boys at home and your mom there for your sis...

I do think that it will really only involve getting her to the blood lab for the first while until they are satisfied with her INR levels.

otherwise she should do fine, i tis a very, very common med to be on -tell her she should also avoid eating excess broccoli or any other common blood thinning veggie OH and you aren't allowed to take aspirin with this med. If she takes a daily baby aspirin that would normally be stopped -check with her doctor. All I know is that I always had to take tylenol with acetametophine (sp) rather than ASA pills or aspirin. something about the combo can make dangerous levels for blood thinning.

regards, Ally