Guest guest Posted November 21, 2002 Report Share Posted November 21, 2002 Hi , I have been taking a drug named Acitrom, which is a variant of coumadin, for the past year and a half. I tested positive for Anti-Cardiolipin Antibodies but was negative for lupus anti-coagulant. These are the two antibodies which cause blood clots. I'm right now taking 3mg for 4 days of a week and 2mg for the rest of the week. My INR was 3.7 about a month back and my dosage was reduced from 3mg on all days to the above dose. I also take 100mg of aspirin a day. They usually try to maintain my INR between 2 and 3. I've also been on Chemotherapy throughout the past year and these drugs also have a tendency to destroy platelets and thereby prevent clotting. Therefore I've been on a relatively low dose of acitrom throughout. I've also been told that this drug does not have any side effect and the only thing one must take care while on the drug is to avoid getting hurt or wounded. Avoid eating green leafy vegetables also. Since you have tested positive for lupus anti-coagulant, your doctor would want you to be on coumadin so long as you are positive. Mukund Catch all the cricket action. Download Yahoo! Score tracker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 , I can understand that you are pretty much confused as I was also when I was first told about this. But I did make some research on the subject and just about managed to understand it a wee bit. Both Lupus Anticoagulant and Anti-cardiolipin antibodies are a class of proteins called Anti-Phospholipid Antibodies. Presence of these proteins may cause clotting disorders and miscarriages (this is the only thing that I'm never going to have). Clotting disorders can be of two types. One where your blood has the tendency to clot abnormally which is usually referred to as Phlebitis or Thrombophlebitis. The second type of clotting disorder is where your platelet count falls to abnormally low levels. Platelets are the cells in blood which actually stick together to form clots. Therefore in this type of clotting disorder due to low platelet counts your blood may not clot properly at all since there are not sufficient number of platelets available to stick together. This type of clotting disorder is known as Thrombocytopenia. The Coumadin which you take prevents the blood from clotting. But what I don't understand is that when you say your platelet count is already low then why do you need coumadin to supplement it?? You may just ask your doctor why you are on coumadin when your platelets are already low when you go for your appointment. In my case I had a blood clot which began in my right ankle and then started moving up until my thigh. If it had moved a little bit more higher I may have required surgery to remove it as otherwise it could have entered the renal artery and cut off blood supply to my kidneys. So they put me on this Acitrom. Since I am also on chemo drugs which destroy platelets my INR usually goes up and so they reduce the dosage of Acitrom. The dosage has been varying between 2 & 4mg for the past year. But so long as your INR is between 2 & 3, I don't think you need to worry too much. I hope I haven't confused you more than you were earlier. I have some material downloaded on my office PC which I'll try and send it to you by Monday. Mukund Re: Re: coumadin and INR W to mukundMukund,thanks for the info. It's weird that you say that low platelets from the chemo actually prevents the blood from clotting. I'm not doubting that is true. I really don't know or understand enough about this. As I said in my post to Kerry, I had pretty much just blown it off. One of the reasons my new rheumy tested me for the lupus anticoagaulant and the anticardiolipin antibodies (which was negative for me) was because she noticed my platelets were low. Not dangerously low, just below normal. She said something about the clotting disorder causing low platelets. So, anyway, now I'm totally confused. How can the clotting disorder cause low platelets and blood clots? Maybe I miss understood and the low platelets and the lupus anticoagulant are two totally separate things that can be caused by lupus.Anyway, from what I do understand, the lupus anticogaulant and the anticardiolipin antibodies do pretty much the same things in the old bod!! (or young bod even)I obviously have much to learn and intend to ask for an education when I see the internal med doc on Monday and also when I see the rheumy in January.Please do take care. You are truly a remarkable young man. You give me inspriration when I see you treading on despite your many health issues. W Catch all the cricket action. Download Yahoo! Score tracker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 I am on coumadin i take 2 mg one day and then 4 the next My dr says i am very sentive to coumadin but with what i am taking right now my INR is staying at 2.1 he did have me on 3 one day and then 5 mg the next and my INR shot up to 7.1 and plus i am aniemc (SP) really bad to so when my inr was that high i had to go into the hospital and i had to get 2 pints of blood and got a vitamn K shot to bring down my inr and it brought it down to a 1 this all happen last month right before i left my fiance. But do like Mukund ask your dr when you go and see him again. My dr was playing around with my coumadin for a couples of months until they were able to get me on the right dosage. So hopefully i will stay on this dosage now and they won't have to play around with it anymore. I get my INR checked once every two weeks. Love Kimi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 Mukund, No, you didn't confuse me. I do understand much better now. My platelets are not always below normal and even when they are, it's not dangerously low. Since March of this year, they've ranged from a high of 272 the end of March to a low of 121. the last two times they were checked earlier this month, they were 135. My lab lists normal as 180 to 400, but I think the value may be multiplied by 1000. I don't have the actual lab sheet in front of me. The initial lab work the rheumy saw with low platelets was from labs done in mid April, which showed a platelet count of 133. I think they don't actually call it thrombocytopenia til the platelet cound goes below 50. I think it may be possible that my platelet count is low simply due to my nutritional status and not at all due to lupus or the lupus anti-coagulant. When it was low in mid-april, I had lost about 63 lbs in 4 months intentionally due to weight loss surgery. My platelets were not checked again until I had the attack of acute pancreatitis on July 18th. The new rheumy had wanted them checked on July 3rd when I saw her, but it took the people in the lab 8 tries to get enough blood for the tests she ordered. They ended up not having enough blood to do the complete blood count or CBC, which would have included a platelet count. My platelet count was 210 on Jul 18th when I was admitted to the hospital with acute panc. They had dropped to 166 on July 25th but that was after a week of almost no food at all. They've been low most of the time since then. However, I've now been in the hospital 10 times since July 18th with pancreatitis and bouts of severe abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. I've had so many days that I couldn't eat at all I can't even count them. I've also had even more days when I couldn't possibly get enough nutrition for the day, never mind getting enough nutrition to make up for the days I could not eat. Anyway, my nutritional status is very poor right now, so that actually could be the cause of my low platelets. Right now the verdict is still out on whether or not lupus is at the root of the pancreatitis. My primary care physician (pcp) believes that all my low blood counts are due to my poor nutritional status and they will return to normal after I have surgery to take care of whatever is causing the pancreatitis, pain, nausea, and vomiting. W Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 22, 2002 Report Share Posted November 22, 2002 Kimi, thanks for the info. I've got plenty of questions for my doc on Monday! W Re: Re: coumadin and INR to W I am on coumadin i take 2 mg one day and then 4 the next My dr says i am very sentive to coumadin but with what i am taking right now my INR is staying at 2.1 he did have me on 3 one day and then 5 mg the next and my INR shot up to 7.1 and plus i am aniemc (SP) really bad to so when my inr was that high i had to go into the hospital and i had to get 2 pints of blood and got a vitamn K shot to bring down my inr and it brought it down to a 1 this all happen last month right before i left my fiance. But do like Mukund ask your dr when you go and see him again. My dr was playing around with my coumadin for a couples of months until they were able to get me on the right dosage. So hopefully i will stay on this dosage now and they won't have to play around with it anymore. I get my INR checked once every two weeks. Love Kimi"The LUPIES Store" Come check out our store...http://www.cafepress.com/thelupies"The LUPIES Web Page"http://www.itzarion.com/lupusgroup.html"The LUPIES online photo albums!" Check out what your fellow Lupies look like...http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=lupies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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