What Is An Anticoagulant Question

Ship55 asked

What is an anticoagulant? What is the purpose of drug (why taken/prescribed), side effects, interactions, instructions, how often drug taken, instructions etc...?

Answer

"Anticoagulant" is a broad term encompassing many different medications that work via different mechanisms to prevent clotting of the blood. They are sometimes referred to as "blood thinners".

Anticoagulants are most commonly used for the prevention of:^[1]

• Strokes
• Pulmonary Embolism
• Secondary Heart Attacks
• Deep Venous Thrombosis
• Atrial Fibrillation

Anticoagulant Examples

Anticoagulants all work by slightly different mechanisms but they all alter a part of the coagulation (clotting) process that happens to the blood in our body.

If you would like to follow up on your question and let us know the specific anticoagulant you are inquiring about, we can give you better and more directed information.

In the meantime, we will run through the important points of a few of the most popular anticoagulants.

Warfarin

This is still the most used anticoagulant on the market and has been around for some time. It is also known as Coumadin. It is typically taken once daily and comes in dosages from 1mg to 10mg.^[2]

The problem with Coumadin, however, is that your blood needs to be tested every once and a while to measure how it's clotting. The test is known as an INR test and it involves drawing and testing the blood in a lab.

Warfarin is what is known as a narrow therapeutic index drug. A small change in dosage can bring about a huge effect so the dose has to be monitored closely.

This is the main drawback of this drug since some of the newer ones don't require this monitoring.

Also, warfarin is well known for the number of drug interactions and food interactions it has.

With food, for example, warfarin works by altering vitamin K in the body and certain foods like leafy greens can affect it so sometimes dietary changes are necessary.

One of the positive features of warfarin is that has an antidote so to say. Sometimes people, for whatever reason, have too high of a level of warfarin in the body and risk hemorrhaging (the escape of blood from blood vessels) because the blood is thinned out too much. An antidote allows a way to neutralize the warfarin. The newer drugs do not have antidotes.

Eliquis

This drug is new and works slightly different than warfarin. It also, according to studies, may be slightly more effective at reducing strokes in patients.^[3]

It appears to have LESS of a bleeding risk than warfarin. It has to be taken twice daily as opposed to the once daily warfarin. It is also significantly more expensive. It does not require the monitoring the warfarin needs.

Xarelto

Another new drug that is taken once daily. It again, does not require monitoring and appears to be as effective as warfarin.^[4]

Pradaxa

Pradaxa again, is another new drug and it is dosed twice daily. This drug has been catching on recently is the second most prescribed anticoagulant. According to studies, it may be more effective than warfarin in preventing strokes. It also does not require monitoring.^[5]

Side Effects

In terms of side effects for these, they are all similar. The side effect of most concern is a bleeding risk. Since they all thin the blood, there is always the possibility they may work too well. If that happens, people tend to bruise and bleed easily, and in the worst cases, can hemorrhage internally which is extremely dangerous. Other than that, the side effects tend to be more patient sensitivity based and can cause skin reactions (rash etc.).

Additional Information

We are more than happy to provide extremely detailed information for you if you want to narrow it down to a certain drug you would like to know about.