My pharmacology professor reiterated over and over that blood does not thin. He discussed it so much that now when I hear someone call an anticoagulant a blood thinner I literally flinch.
The clotting process is very complicated. One doctor told me they actually spent 6 weeks on the topic in med school. There are different kinds of anticoagulants such as coumadin (warfarin), heparin, lovenox, plavix, and aspirin just to name a few. Aspirin and Plavix are actually anti-platelets. They make the blood cells slick so they don't stick together and form a clot. Heparin is a short acting anticoagulant. It is out of the system within a few hours. Coumadin is a long acting anticoagulant and takes several days to get your blood to the clotting time needed. They work on the actual clotting process, slowing down clotting time.
When you take coumadin you will need to have your blood clotting time checked. A test called an INR (International Normalized Ratio) is how the drug is regulated. Say for example the 1:1 ratio of blood clotting is 10 seconds. If you need to take coumadin we would want your ratio to be between 2 and 3 which would mean we want it to take 20 to 30 seconds (using 10 seconds as an example of 1) for your blood to clot.
We see a lot of people on coumadin due to Atrial Fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm.
Til next time,
Tridil
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