Dear friends, I hope this Dusshera ushered in a n...

Dear friends, I hope this Dusshera ushered in a new beginning for all of you. I saw a patient recently at Lotus who is taking tablet Warfarin, which is blood thinning tablet which is given for few months or sometimes lifelong. Our patient had developed Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) 3 months ago out of a blue. This a disease where blood clots (thrombosis) are formed in the blood vessels. DVT is formed in veins, which carry impure blood to our heart. He was started on Warfarin tablet. He came to our hospital with headache. His INR (test to know how thin our blood is) was very high. Normal should be between 2 to 2.5, in our patient it was 6.7 !! We did his CT scan which showed a bleed in his brain. This is a serious disorder. So why his INR was high? Our patient was taking alcohol (2- 3 pegs) on weekend. Alcohol should not be taken with warfarin tablet. Alcohol interacts with warfarin tablet and the INR goes up and this can lead to serious bleeding. This is what happened with our patient. This case is presented to highlight the risk of bleeding while taking warfarin. We should take adequate precautions and listen to our doctor while taking medications. I hope it is useful.