Heparin

[kfay]

Ok, you anti-coag gods, I have a question. When I had my last ablation, I had a reaction to the heparin. They stopped it immediately and told me to be sure and list it as a drug that I am allergic to. From the research I have done about this, it doesn't seem to be an uncommon problem with people who have been previously exposed to heparin. So, what will they use going forward if Heparin is off limits? I know they use it during cardiac surgery (of which I'll have more), and I know I was on it whileI was in the hospital until my coumadin level came up. Have any of the rest of you ever experienced it?

Kimmie

 

[Ross]

What kind of reaction did you have? I'm sure there are other agents that can be used, but what they are specifically, I don't know.

 

[Lynlw]

Kim, I'm not sure what kind of reaction you had, but I know if you have a history of Heparin Induced Thrombocytopenia (HIT) they use other drugs like argatroban, (that's what they used on Katie when she had HIT) http://www.argatroban.com/

 

[vhmoriarty]

There is a shot you can give yourself in the stomach...yeah not fun at all. I used to have to do my late husbands for about 4 days before surgery twice daily. They are really expensive though, like for 15 its $1500.00. Now our insurance paid for it, but still that was crazy.

It was called Lovenox

 

[Ross]

There is a shot you can give yourself in the stomach...yeah not fun at all. I used to have to do my late husbands for about 4 days before surgery twice daily. They are really expensive though, like for 15 its $1500.00. Now our insurance paid for it, but still that was crazy.

It was called Lovenox

Only problem is, Lovenox is Low Molecular Weight Heparin.

 

[kfay]

Yep, I had the same problem first with the Lovenox I was taking after my first ablation this summer, only I didn't tell anyone about it. When I was in the hospital after the second ablation, I started getting the same feeling (I felt like I had spiders crawling all over my insides, hard to describe the feeling but it bordered on being painful) and it got so bad that I finally mentioned it to the nurse and told her I had felt the same way when I had taken the Lovenox a couple of months prior. She almost yelled at me.