We recently went through a real trial with a situation involving my 83 year old mother. She has an artificial mitral valve and has used Coumadin for 19 years. There have been an number of incidents where she had experienced very bad, uncontrollable bleeding. We acquired Quikclot gauze pads a few years ago and have been able to successfully stop those bleeds. It is a product that causes the blood to clot and is used by the U.S. military to save lives on the battlefield.
The recent incident with my mother involved a small scratch she received by hitting a table leg with her ankle. The scratch was only about 3/4 of an inch, but the bleeding was severe. We were able to get it stopped by applying a Quikclot gauze pad. After the bleeding stopped, we applied just regular, intreated gauze and wrapped it up. The following morning, she decided to change the dressing and, when she removed it, peeled the skin off her ankle. She called me and my wife and I went to her home and got things under control again, but felt she needed to see the emergency room. They applied a gauze that was coated with petroleum jelly and then wrapped the whole area.
All that was to get to my big concern. Her INR has been all over the place since then. From a low of 1.2 to a high of 4.3. Due to that artificial valve, it is critical that she have a steady, acceptable fluidity to her blood and too low or too high an INR is a big deal.
My question to the forum is: "Does stress cause this type of issue?" "If so, what alternatives are there to simply working various dosages of Coumadin to try to get to the 3.5 area that the cardiologist wants?" I have spoken to both her cardiologist and her PCP, but they really don't seem to responsive to the concerns. They just say to try the variations of 1 mg. to 2 mg. per day and come back next week and we'll see how it worked. Any light you can shed on this would be appreciated. In exchange, my advice is that anyone who uses blood thinners should have Quikclot in their home. It has saved us from a number of really bloody incidents over the last couple of years.
We recently went through a real trial with a situation involving my 83 year old mother. She has an artificial mitral valve and has used Coumadin for 19 years. There have been an number of incidents where she had experienced very bad, uncontrollable bleeding. We acquired Quikclot gauze pads a few years ago and have been able to successfully stop those bleeds. It is a product that causes the blood to clot and is used by the U.S. military to save lives on the battlefield.
The recent incident with my mother involved a small scratch she received by hitting a table leg with her ankle. The scratch was only about 3/4 of an inch, but the bleeding was severe. We were able to get it stopped by applying a Quikclot gauze pad. After the bleeding stopped, we applied just regular, intreated gauze and wrapped it up. The following morning, she decided to change the dressing and, when she removed it, peeled the skin off her ankle. She called me and my wife and I went to her home and got things under control again, but felt she needed to see the emergency room. They applied a gauze that was coated with petroleum jelly and then wrapped the whole area.
All that was to get to my big concern. Her INR has been all over the place since then. From a low of 1.2 to a high of 4.3. Due to that artificial valve, it is critical that she have a steady, acceptable fluidity to her blood and too low or too high an INR is a big deal.
My question to the forum is: "Does stress cause this type of issue?" "If so, what alternatives are there to simply working various dosages of Coumadin to try to get to the 3.5 area that the cardiologist wants?" I have spoken to both her cardiologist and her PCP, but they really don't seem to responsive to the concerns. They just say to try the variations of 1 mg. to 2 mg. per day and come back next week and we'll see how it worked. Any light you can shed on this would be appreciated. In exchange, my advice is that anyone who uses blood thinners should have Quikclot in their home. It has saved us from a number of really bloody incidents over the last couple of years.