Traveling to Europe I wonder if my INR will be affected

[duncanjo]

Got a question, live in Canada traveling to Switzerland end of the month got a mech valve on warfarin for 30 days. I wonder if my INR will be affected by being on the other side of the earth? Any personal experience?
Thanks Joe...

 

[duncanjo]

i mean going to switzerland for 30 days..sorry

 

[AgilityDog]

Travel fatigue, lack of exercise, more exercise, change in veggie intake, increased alcohol intake, may affect your INR. Take your monitor, or check out where you can have your test run before you go. With that kind of upheaval, even if you are pretty stable, you may want to test weekly.

I had no problems traveling from Dallas to Hawaii for a week, no significant change, but 4 days on the beach in Florida without any exercise made my INR get a tad high. Go figure.

 

[RobThatsMe]

Hi,

I have traveled back and forth to Europe every 2 weeks, for the last 5 years. Never had any issues. But that being said, on the few times that I stayed for more than two weeks, I took my home monitor with me to self check.

Hope you have a great time!

Rob

 

[Bina]

Joe, you will most definitely need a personal nurse with a home monitor.....I am qualified and packing my bags.

 

[yotphix]

Hi Joe,
I'm also Ontarian, and I'm in Europe right now. I was in Amsterdam for a week, and I have been in Transylvania for a week since then. I travelled here from San Diego and the only thing I would suggest, (others may have different opinions and mine may be wrong) is pushing your time to take your warfarin in two steps rather than one 6 or 7 hour step. What I mean is, if you normally take it after dinner, around 6pm as I do, consider that dinner is some number of hours earlier in your destination time zone and take it half that amount of time earlier the day before so you aren't taking it after just 16 hours. I doubt it makes a huge difference but I have done it both times I have been to Europe since I started taking Warfarin in 2009 and followed my INR closely with my Coaguchek. I have stayed precisely in range, and varied by less than .5 over each trip. I am also careful to get the same amount of exercise and eat the same amount of greens, which plays an equally important role. I don't drink alcohol any more so that one is easy for me.
In my experience, just being on the other side of the world, and having time shifted as a result doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect on INR.
Enjoy your trip. I wish I wasn't heading back to work so soon.