Re: Re: I got my daughter back!- thanks to blood thinners

[Guest guest]

- That is a great story about the blood thinner helping. Glad your

daughter has seen some relief from them. Good news there! And i can answer some

of your questions on blood thinners.

 

Quick background: I know a lot about blood thinners, because my Lyme had caused

an irregular heartbeat and heart palpitations for years. The irregular

heartbeat meant that i needed to be on the Rx blood thinner coumadin - but my

cardiologist has recently said it was ok to stop the coumadin since my Lyme

treatment has (knock on wood) allowed me to keep my heartbeat in normal rhythym,

and 'regular', for a year now - and i have a very low CHADS score for stroke

risk (he is not Lyme Literate, so doesnt think the Lyme has anything to do with

my heart issues or their improvement). So i'll now be stopping coumadin, and the

timing is perfect, because i wanted to start one of the natural blood thinners

anyway, as part of Lyme treatment. And i did NOT want to mix blood thinners

(explained below).

 

This leads to your questions:

 

- Yes, you can stay on blood thinners with daily pills for an extended period of

time. The danger however, is that blood that is too thin can cause internal

bleeding or a hemorrhagic stroke. Injuries become riskier also, because you

might bleed a lot more than usual. One way this risk is managed is by measuring

the blood's INR - which in a normal person is 1.0. I would measure mine weekly,

and the desired range was between 2.0 and 3.0. Just thin enough to lower stroke

risk, but not so thin that my bleeding dangers were severe. However, bleeding

risk was still higher than a normal person.

 

- Being on coumadin is also difficult because there are 100s of things (foods,

Rx's, supplements, etc) that change your INR, but in hard to predict ways. This

obviously can be tough on a Lyme patient, given all the meds/supps we take, and

change frequently.

 

- Another problem with taking blood thinners, which gets worse when you mix

them, is that you can't always measure the 'thin-ness' of the blood via an INR

test. The reason is that there are several aspects to blood clotting (called the

'coagulation cascade'), and the INR test only measures one of those aspects.

So only those thinners that change that one aspect can be measured via an INR

test. 

 

- And that brings me to my point above - i didnt want to mix coumadin and any of

the natural thinners because my bleeding risk would then be unmeasurable, and

probably in a danger zone. So now that i'll be stopping coumadin, i can take

natural thinners. I am doing research to see if natural thinners have bleeding

risk that can be as bad as a powerful Rx like coumadin - hopefully it's not as

big of a risk.

 

- Natural thinners can actually help Lyme in other ways. For example,

nattokinase is both a blood thinner and an enzyme that dissolves Lyme biofilm.

Coumadin, on the other hand, is rat poison, and destroys vitamin K, which is a

vital nutrient. Heparin and Lovenox may also be as bad as coumadin in those

respects.

 

- There are supposedly new Rx thinners out now that dont require INR to be

measured. I'm not sure if it's because they're safer than coumadin. I need to

check those out.

 

- In Lyme folks, the reason thick blood hurts us is that it's thickness is

raised via coagulation factors, including Fibrin. Thinners help Lyme by

dissolving this fibrin, which is good, because thick blood impairs delivery of

oxygen, nutrients, and even antibiotics to the far reaches of the body. Fibrin

is also bad because Lyme can 'hide' from treatment there (tricky little

buggers!). The icing on the cake is that hypercoagulation can also make the

heart work harder and raise stroke risk.  

 

So in conclusion, be very careful with blood thinners, whether you go the Rx

route or the natural route, and realize that more isnt always better. Blood

thinners are one of the top reasons for ER visits in the US, because of the

sloppiness that exists in all aspects of the medical system (which is another

rant for another day). [CaliforniaLyme] has had a good discussion going on the

past few days about natural thinners. Let me know and i can forward you those.

If you have any more questions, let me know.

Take care, Bill

 

 

> Hi All -

> Recently my daughter got a blood clot from a failed midline and we had to do 5

weeks of Lovenox injections. She is 9 years old and has Lyme and Bartonella. Her

symptoms are all neurologically and psychologically based - motor, vocal tics,

anger, hostility, aggression, rage, anxiety, ocd, volatility etc. Prior to the

blood clot, she was raging out of the control and we were attempting to put in a

midline to treat with Rocephin intravenously. We were also getting ready to

treat with major psychotropic drugs.

>

> One week into the injections, all of my daughters symptoms subsided. She has

been symptom free since February 3rd. There is no more hostility, anger,

aggression - nothing. For two years, we tried every antibiotic you can imagine -

IVIG, midlines, all of it. And amazingly it took Lovenox to relieve her

symptoms. Based on the limited research I have done, I now understand that she

has coagulation issues and that is why she has not gotten better in the past.

>

> She has not had a Lovenox shot since March 3 and I am told that the Lovenox

will ware off in 5-6 weeks. I am fearful that all of her symptoms will come back

at that time.

>

> So my questions to all of you are:

>

> If you have coagulation issues and use blood thinners, how often do you have

to use the blood thinners?

>

> Can you stay on the Blood Thinners for an extended period of time?

>

> What do the blood thinners do as it relates to Lyme?

>

> Do you have a doctor that you use who prescribes blood thinners? If so, can

you pass on their contact info?

>

> Can you provide any additional research about Coagulation and Lyme?

>

> Are they injections? If not, what do you use?

>

> What blood tests did you run to find out that you had coagulation issues?

>

> Any information that you can pass on is greatly appreciated.

>

> I feel blessed that I have finally figured out a HUGE piece of the puzzle and

know how to heal my daughter. Now, I just need to find a way to continue to give

her blood thinners.

> Thanks,

>