Life DOES go on after DVT
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 Hello all I am a newbie to all this

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karren1




Posts : 2
Join date : 2008-05-15

Hello all I am a newbie to all this Empty
PostSubject: Hello all I am a newbie to all this   Hello all I am a newbie to all this Icon_minitimeThu May 15, 2008 3:42 pm

Hi all,

Thank you for this site,

My name is Karren and i had a PE left lung in Feb08 so I am pretty new to all of this and still learning about it.

age 46
have been put on Warfarin and my inr levels are been pretty good and steady thankfully.

but i do have a question normal level for me is 2.5 to 3.0 but had my bloods tested on monday and they had dropped to 1.6, the nurse did'nt seem concerned at all so off I went and waiting for my next test which is in 2 weeks.

but reading alot of posts how the levels go up and down im like oh maybe i should be concerned

now im not normally this thick ok i am but lets not talk about that.... the higher your level the thicker the blood? or is it the other way round?

I have been looking for advice and help in understanding what has happened to me and not had much luck with my GP or hospital, I had the PE and have been put onto these tablets and basically told to get on with it.
so you can see how relived I was when I found this site.


karren
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dero
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dero


Posts : 904
Join date : 2007-12-09
Age : 64
Location : Near Ottawa, Ontario Canada.

Hello all I am a newbie to all this Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hello all I am a newbie to all this   Hello all I am a newbie to all this Icon_minitimeThu May 15, 2008 8:38 pm

Hi Karren,
First, welcome to Life After DVT and sorry you have to be here. You are welcome, the reason this site was put together was specially meant for outpatients like ourselves who had questions that nobody seemed to be able to answer or that you had to search for days for answers, so we figured that if we could gather all the information that we have found in our own searches, it could serve for other DVT/PE outpatients, like yourself.

For the INR, the way it works is as such:

- to correct a common misconception, our blood's viscosity (thickness) does not change it is always the same,
we keep hearing thinner blood, blood thinners and ... IT DOES NOT CHANGE.
Blood thinners(anticoagulants: be it warfarin, coumadin, Lovenox, Dabigatran...) do not thinn your blood, what it does is prevent your blood from coagulating if you cut yourself, meaning that if you cut yourself it will take longer to control(stop) the bleeding.

A "normal person" has an INR of around 1.0 (more coagulation)

A "DVT/PE outpatient" (you or I) need to maintain an INR of between 2.0 to 3.0, I have notice that most doctor preffer to see PE outpatients between 2.5 and 3.0.

The higher the #, the less coagulation there is.

At first, you will notice that your INR will fluxtuate and your doctor will be changing your dosage of Warfarin to match your targeted INR. Eventually, if you are one of the lucky ones your targeted area will be attained and you won't feel like a yoyo with your warfarin dosage. (I was not one of the lucky ones...)


I hope this helps to clear the mysteries, if you have more questions, don't be shy. Ask, it's the only way to learn and we NEED to learn.
For the PE specific questions I may have problems, I only had a DVT, never made it to the PE stage.
If somebody that had a PE,may be able to help you more then I can.
You have to understand that all members here are NOT doctors, we are simply going by what we have learned from our experience with DVT.
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