Did anyone suffer serious injury while on warfarin?

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jarno1973

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 5, 2011
Messages
91
Location
Rayong Thailand
I am curious if some of you had serious accidents while on warfarin and if being on warfarin complicated things a lot or maybe not so much at all.

I am trying to evaluate the increased risk for serious complications when I would for example suffer a broken bone (leg, arm, wrist, collar bone type of thing).

I love action type of sports and although the doctor won't recommend it I still want to evaluate if my activities would immediately become life threatening or maybe only become slightly more complicated due to the obvious reasons. I guess that some people may not understand the importance of these things to someone and would always recommend against but I hope some of you have some true life experiences which can help me evaluate.

Thanks and regards,

Jarno
 
Hi Jarno,

The major risk for someone your age on warfarin, as far as I understand it, is a risk from a bleed into the brain. If you bleed from a broken leg, they can usually slow the bleed with appropriate splinting and bandaging etc, and then administer reversal agents to return your clotting to normal while they operate on your leg, if you bleed badly they may give you blood products such as Packed red blood cells or the like, and then get you back onto warfarin. Its a different story with the brain. A bleed into the brain (ie a haemorragic stroke or a blow to the head causing bleeding) is far more serious. You can't apply pressure to stop the bleed, and the consequences of a bleed into the brain are far worse than a bleed elsewhere on the body. So when on warfarin they do encourage people to not climb ladders etc, because a fall and hitting the head can have far worse consequences when taking warfarin. So, a your age, I wouldn't be so worried about the consequnces of bleeding if you break a leg, arm wrist collar bone so much, yes, you will bleed more, yes you will need some careful medical attention but it can usally be sorted....its about your poor old brain Jarno, and about hitting your head and bleeing into the skull and brain tissue. I don't mean the usual sort of bump of knock. Unfortunately, someone who has had a serious head injury and is also on warfarin and especially if the warfarin is poorly controlled and their INR is too high may not be too able to reply to your post, as sometimes the bleeding is fatal, and othertimes they are left with some permanent brain damage, but I am sure there will be someone out there who has experienced a head injury wilst on warfarin. There are also lots of people who continue to ride bikes and climb ladders while on warfarin, but just a bit more care and always wear a helmet etc etc.
I m active, fit a healthy, and was on warfarin for 3 months, and just to be safe I avoided the skate board, bike riding and climbing ladders....just in case. I was also very carful to always hold on whilst going up and down stairs, as I was also ona couple of other medications that can make you unsteady. Unfortunately I had a car accident, and did get my head shaken badly and had some short term (a few minutes) memory loss and was quite shaken and because I was on warfarin they took a cautious approach and did a CT of my head, just to be sure that I didn't have a bleed in my brain. If I wasn't on warfarin they would not have dne a CT of my head/brain. Anyway, thankfully it was all ok, but it just reinforced to me that when on warfarin you are at an increased risk of brain bleeding.

It depends on what sports you are playing Jarno, the bigest concern would be with sports that have high impact velocities and where you can hit your head badly..eg grid iron, car racing, rugby league, kick boxing, cage fighting, etc. Avoid these sorts of sports and otehrwise protect your head and you will be ok.
 
Hey Jarno - I've been on warfarin for just over a year now and I'm very active too - I'm a competitive paddler (mainly downwind ocean paddling, going out in big wind and swell) and I'm a terrible mountain biker. Recently I had a couple injuries which made me realise I'm not as fragile as I was led to believe:

Fell off my surf ski in a shore break, boat got picked up by a wave and hurled into my head. There was a sickening cracking noise and pretty soon a great big lump. By the time I got medical attention it was two hours later and the people at the hospital were not in the least concerned.

Very next day I took a jump on my new MTB and went WAAAAY further than I expected - my foot slipped off the pedal when I landed and the spiked pedal slammed into my shin. I bled a bit more than I would have otherwise, but I continued riding with no worries.

I expected a lot worse for both of these, especially the crunch to the head - but I was fine. I agree with ramjet that we should minimise activities that might cause us to hit our heads on the ground without a helmet, but I'm not going to let warfarin confine me to crocheting! :)
 
Thanks for your answers guys.

I used to do thaiboxing but not competive for a long time. Its a great way to keep in shape. I can do that and stay away from heavy sparring.

My dilemma is about buying a motocross bike again. I think I will but will try to prevent extreme risks. Will try to keep a 'safe' pace and stay away from dangerous jumps. Still not without risk but with all safety gear on I guess I should be alright.

Jarno
 
jarno1973 said:
My dilemma is about buying a motocross bike again. I think I will but will try to prevent extreme risks. Will try to keep a 'safe' pace and stay away from dangerous jumps. Still not without risk but with all safety gear on I guess I should be alright.

It depends on how experienced you are at a sport. If you know how to handle a bike and know your limits, you should be OK. In other words, if you're good at a given sport and know how to avoid the danger, your risk should not increase much.
 
Jarno: I see you did not last a year on a tissue valve...did it fail......? i am still going back and forth on which way to go.......I am aways out from meeting my surgeon to discuss options. my situation is urgent but not critical...cath and TEE on 12/4.
 
Jarno: I see you did not last a year on a tissue valve...did it fail......? i am still going back and forth on which way to go.......I am aways out from meeting my surgeon to discuss options. my situation is urgent but not critical...cath and TEE on 12/4.

Hi,

Yes I was not very lucky..I really wanted the tissue valve even knowing that it would maybe last me only 10 years (but quietly still expecting a lot more than 10 years)...The main reason was that I did not want to be on warfarin...so I could lead a trouble free life...i like action sports and now that I am on warfarin anyway I am a bit in doubt what I should and should not do...still trying to decide on motocross..(now hanging towards doing it anyway).

So I ended up with warfarin and a mechanical valve ...I have to admit that warfarin itself with a home tester is not much of an issue..i drink alcohol sometimes which does not affect it much, work hard, am maybe performing better at sports than before any of this happened, am travelling and will probably soon be doing all the things I did before.

I am still not sure what happened with my tissue valve but likely the main issue has been prothesis mismatch which means they put in a valve that was too small...this means that if the valve had been of the correct size it would probably have lasted a lot longer.

Also the Open heart surgeries have been manageable but I rather would have saved my second one for a later time in my life. If I ever need to go in again it will already be the third...which is not making things easier I believe..

All in all a difficult choice but once you make it don't look back. Both type of valves have advantages and disadvantages, there are no garantees with any of them but you should be alright with any of them for many years to come.

Good luck..

Jarno
 
I've been on Coumadin for 12 years and have been doing triathlons for the past nine years. I've crashed on my bike a couple of times. The worst one was when I was going about 22 mph; I went down and hit my head hard enough to flatten and crack one side of my helmet on the pavement. The worst part was all the road rash down the right side of my body and then picking out all the gravel and other debris from the wounds. Painful, but not made any worse by the Coumadin.

My personal view, FWIW, is that if you do something traumatic enough to cause a brain bleed, then you've got some pretty serious issues going on, Coumadin or not. The Coumadin might make the injury marginally worse, but it's not the cause.

I also work on my cars a lot and do quite a bit of carpentry. I'm always busting my knuckles and getting small cuts. Yeah, I may bleed a bit longer, but it's certainly not enough to keep me from doing any of it. Acceptable risk to me.

Life's too short to cower in fear of something that may not happen.

Mark
 
Hi Mark,

Thanks for your reply. Exactly what I want to hear. I will just keep on asking until I get the replies that I want to hear :D...

I am ordering a dirtbike at the moment...can't wait to get started :)
 
Just so I don't sound too reckless or irresponsible, I'll add the caveat that I've never taken on a new activity without first discussing it with my cardiologist and/or primary care physician. I actually got into doing triathlons after my cardiologist encouraged me to swap heavy weight lifting for more aerobic exercise. Road cycling certainly has some inherent risks, but that's independent of whether or not I'm using Coumadin. Coumadin might make the consequences of getting injured marginally worse, but it's not going to be the cause of getting injured.

The only activity that my cardiologist has asked me to stop was lifting heavy weights or doing sets lifting to failure. At the same time he wants me to continue doing some weight training (moderate weights with high reps) to offset muscle loss due to aging (I'm currently 59).

Mark
 
I've been on warfarin for 22 years. Started right when I turned 18.

I've mountain biked and went over the bars a few times
I've done downhill skiing
Broke my elbow on the basketball court
Broke my thumb when my son (just learning to ride) stopped suddenly in front of me and I had to bail to avoid running him over.
Same son - taken a line drive in the ribs during coach pitch baseball (a couple times)
Had a second heart surgery while bridging with lovanox

I'm sure there are more that I've had. So far so good. Most I've noticed is longer lasting, more colorful bruises.
 
I haven't ridden offroad since my surgery, but I ride a Ducati on the street, a bicycle, I rollerblade, run, swim, jetski, sail etc. I also work at various things which are somewhat brutal on my body and my normal state was (pre-surgery) and remains (now that I am anti-coagulated) cut, broken and bruised. I am sure that I bleed a little longer (though not 'more', as in gushing), I bruise a little easier, and I will definitely get my head looked at if I hit it hard enough. (I've had a number of solid knocks but with no signs of concussion, I figure I have nothing to fear.)
Best one yet, I had my thumb slammed in the car door by my dear loving wife to the tune of 3 stitches! It burst over a 2" length with tendon showing, and bled for hours but again, not gushing, just longer to clot.
I do carry Hemostatic powder when I am doing relatively dangerous things in places where doctors and paramedics aren't close. (At sea, for instance, or trail running.)
Don't let a little bit of anti-coagulation hold you back.
 
I ordered it from some randomly selected web medical supply outfit. Amazon has QuickClot brand sponges with granules in them, designed for active outdoor people like us. I ended up with some other brand of loose powder, which is apparently 'first generation' technology, now supplanted. I think soldiers carry the sponges now.
 
My injuries have been pretty pedestrian, when compared to others listed here. With the help of my wife, I dropped a 50 (maybe more?) poumd piece of marble on my foot. It bruised, swelled, filled with blood, and looked pretty awful for a few days. Ice packs helped a little. But, other than probably filling with blood more quickly (and more fully) than if I wasn't taking coumadin, it wasn't too big a deal. I got a concussion when a dishwasher that I was helping a person load into his car hit me in the head (the jerk let go before it was in the car) -- a CT scan showed no evidence of a brain bleed.

Perhaps the most trouble I had with bleeding was for a dental extraction. I had to bite down on the gauze for more than an hour to get the bleeding to stop. Taking warfarin isn't really changing my mostly sedentary lifestyle.

Obviously, others who are more active, and whose normal life activities involve cuts and bruises do okay on warfarin. It's really not to be feared -- and if you carry the coagulation powder, this should help, too.
 
OOOH where do you get hemostatic powder? I've never even heard of it, but it would be a wise addition to my MTB first aid kit!

You can get a styptic pencil or styptic powder in the shaving needs section of any grocery store I would think. You're supposed to use it on razor knicks to stop bleeding.
 
Styptic devices will work on small cuts. I don't recall ever having a shaving cut that needed the use of a stypic pencil or powder. For many small cuts, just a Kleenex or piece of toilet paper will help make the blood clot. (Sometimes, though, it may take the clot along with it when your pull it off).

The point behind these things is providing some surface area onto which a clot can form.
 
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