Coumadin

I had a pulmonary embolism in April and am on blood thinners for life.   I was hoping to switch to one of the new blood thinners that do not require frequent testing/vitamin K restrictions.  My hematologist does not want to take me off Coumadin because there isn't any good data about absorption with the new drugs after RYN.

I'm concerned about all of the vitamin K in the protein drink supplements.  Unjury and Nectar seem to be the only ones without vitamin K.  Anyone know of any others without vitamin K?  Any multivitamins without vitamin K?

The amount of Vitamin K in the protein drinks is negligible in terms of interacting with the Coumadin.  Since you will need to also take the multivitamins for life, your doctor will simply need to adjust your dose to a therapeutic level with the vitamins. Even those amounts are somewhat negligible, though.  

If anything, you may become Vitamin K deficient and might need to adjust your Coumadin or take low dose Vit K supplements to avoid bleeding incidents.  

I have been on Coumadin almost constantly since 1979 (I went off of it many years ago for 6 months and ended up with another DVT, and did the same when I was only off of it for a couple of weeks after having had my appendix removed) and my body is very sensitive to various things that interact with it (even eating too many bananas can mess my levels up) but the Vitamin K that is in the vitamins I take didn't even cause me to have to change my dosage.

At one point, my Vit K level had dropped extra sly low and I had gotten lax about testing myself, so I ended up in the hospital with spontaneous bruising all over my body (even the palms of my hads and the bottoms of my feet!) and some minor internal bleeding.

I wouldn't be so quick to want to switch from Coumadin to one of the other drugs because there is already a class action lawsuit against Bayer, the maker of Xarelto, because of serious bleeding incidents.  Apparently, if you don't test your blood you can end up bleeding.  {sarcasm on} Now who could ever have imagined THAT might happen?!? {sarcasm off}

You might want to talk with your insurance company about whether or not they would consider purchasing an in-home monitoring system such as the InRatio system that I have had for quite a few years.  It works just like the glucose testing systems for diabetics.  My insurance requirements included that the patient needed to be on the anticoagulation therapy long term and a couple of other things (don't remember since it has been a long time), but they paid the $2500 (at the time... The costs have come down) for the monitor.  Unfortunately, my current insurance only covers 50% of the cost of the test strips! but it is worth it to me to not have to keep running to the lab every month.

Lora