Does ACT make travel difficult?

[river-wear]

What do you guys do when you travel for a couple of weeks? It seems that traveling can change your diet and wreak havoc on your INR. Do things stay stable long enough to get back home to get tested, or is it necessary to take a "home tester" along with you?

I don't think I'd be concerned about a week or so away, but I'm hoping there will be longer trips overseas in my future post-AVR.

 

[Bridgette]

I went to Singapore a couple of years ago, for 2 weeks. My INR was stable before I left, and I decided not to take my home tester as I was only going to be away for a fortnight. If I was going somewhere for longer though, I'd probably take it, depending on the country of course - places like Australia that have reciprocal medicare arrangements with NZ are okay - I'd just go to their hospitals and ask for an INR test if necessary.

 

[Ross]

Just as Bridgette said.

 

[olefin]

I was retired and had a motorhome before AVR and went back on the road 6 months after AVR. We were in a different place each month so I'd get tested at the local hospital lab. Had a prescription from my cardiologist for them to run PT/INR and give me the results. I'd call doc if I was out of control. Home testing would have been nice. We traveled for another couple years. Since selling the coach we still travel on road trips and cruises. Last year, it was three cruises.

Cruises, I usually gain several pounds but keep up my daily exercise. INR control never a problem. Of course since I started home testing I always take my monitor and test every week just like at home.

I usually eat just like at home... only more of it.

But on the last cruise I ate way more VK food than I normally do at home. So I expected a drop in INR... nope, it increased!
I can never outguess it.

 

[JimL]

If you don't have a home tester to take along, you can go to www.acforum.org (click on Clinic Locations) and find a coumadin clinic to get tested at while you're away; some are rather barbaric and call a lab draw a coumadin clinic, but it gets you a number anyway.

 

[river-wear]

Thank you for the insight everyone. Assuming I get a mechanical valve, I hope to be able to home test, but who knows what the future will bring. I like to travel to Eastern Europe and am going to Russia for a couple of weeks this summer. Hard to fathom having to get a blood test on a trip like that. My husband also spends 1/3 of his time in Asia for business and hopefully someday I'll get to tag along with him.

I actually only take a "big" trip every 5-10 years but hope (for more) springs eternal! I'm realizing life is too short to always put off what I want to do.

 

[Valve-Viking]

Hi Michele,

I regulary travel to many, many places including Russia, Moldova, places
like Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam etc, etc. I think í must have done hundreds of trips since betting my MVR back in 2003. There´s nothing strange to it and I do hometest once a week always anyhow. The only thing to look out for is getting an upset stomach as that will screw up your INR, most of the time it´ll increase it. My only problem happened when I was in Portugal and had a bad seafood-salad, INR went up to 5.1. But when you self-test you can just reduce the warfarin and keep track.

Before my Coaguchek, I also went to local hospitals in Asia for test, it worked out fine, but more of an hassle though.

Good Luck!
/
Martin