Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Ladies Home Journal had a short blurb, which I can't find amongst my clippings right now, about how and why blood thinners help reduce the chances of SCD from atrial fibrillation. I don't remember the details of how it does that, but I do remember the statistics they cited in the column: if you are at risk of atrial fibrillation, and you don't take any blood thinners, you have a 1 in 20 chance of having an incident that could kill you, each year. [Note, my own EP says it's one in 17, not one in 20; I suppose they were rounding off.] If you take low-dose aspirin as a blood thinner, that lowers your risk to 1 in 40 - only half the chance. And if you take coumadin, it lowers your risk to a 1 in 70 chance each year.
So, even if you don't need blood thinners because of clotting risks, apparently you should take them because of fibrillation risks. While taking a strong blood thinner such as coumadin can carry its own risks - I ride a motorcycle, so I'd never take a prescription strength blood thinner, since it could make even a mild accident fatal - taking "baby aspirin" has far fewer risks and apparently accomplishes a lot. And, according to my cardiologist, if you take a proton pump inhibitor, such as Prilosec (available over the counter), it reduced the chances that aspirin will give you stomach ulcers. On the other hand - and isn't there always an other hand? - proton pump inhibitors such as Prilosec and Protonix (one of the newest prescription ones) are in one of the classes of drugs that can lead to increased risk of arrhythmia (see post about 9 posts down from this one). So it sounds like we've come full circle, hasn't it!! Apparently, if possible, to reduce your fibrillation risk in an optimum manner, you should take the low-dose aspirin without the proton-pump inhibitor, if possible.
It gets more complicated all the time.
So, even if you don't need blood thinners because of clotting risks, apparently you should take them because of fibrillation risks. While taking a strong blood thinner such as coumadin can carry its own risks - I ride a motorcycle, so I'd never take a prescription strength blood thinner, since it could make even a mild accident fatal - taking "baby aspirin" has far fewer risks and apparently accomplishes a lot. And, according to my cardiologist, if you take a proton pump inhibitor, such as Prilosec (available over the counter), it reduced the chances that aspirin will give you stomach ulcers. On the other hand - and isn't there always an other hand? - proton pump inhibitors such as Prilosec and Protonix (one of the newest prescription ones) are in one of the classes of drugs that can lead to increased risk of arrhythmia (see post about 9 posts down from this one). So it sounds like we've come full circle, hasn't it!! Apparently, if possible, to reduce your fibrillation risk in an optimum manner, you should take the low-dose aspirin without the proton-pump inhibitor, if possible.
It gets more complicated all the time.
