Good morning everyone.Posting very earlier,couldnt get back to sleep due to being concerned about this vitamin k thing.My hubby is a very small guy.He has lost alot of weight with all the oral surgery and not having any teeth right now he isnt able to eat a whole lot of stuff.I finally got him to drink some ensure.He had 1 last night and this morning,well heres the question,I just read the back of the container to see what the nutritional values are and there is 25% vitamin k in this drink.My hubby is taken plavix with 350 mg asprin,this is only the 4th day on it and he will be tested Monday and taken of it but will this cause any major reaction to happen to him?
Vitamin k ?
- Thread starter Vanessa
- Start date
Help Support Valve Replacement Forums:
Ross
Well-known member
Only if he's taking Coumadin. It has no affect on Plavix or asprin. I'm curious on what they are testing for Monday. There is no test for Plavix and asprin.
Ross
Well-known member
You only have to worry about Ensure if your taking Coumadin.
Plus, since he's pre-op, I would assume he doesn't need the ant-coag effect yet anyway. Sounds like it's just a test to see if he can handle Plavix after surgery when he does need the anti-coag effect (if I understood right).
But for others (and for him after surgery, esp. if he ends up on Coumadin), I was cautioned about Ensure and some other things that have supplements. There are a lot of things at health-food stores (like GNC) that can mess with your INR. They basically told me to stay away from (or at least get approval first) before taking or consuming any supplements, shakes etc. Which reminds me - I've been having slimfast once in a while - I better check the label on that sucker! But as Ross has said over and over, you'd have to binge on vit. k to have it really affect your INR much.
But for others (and for him after surgery, esp. if he ends up on Coumadin), I was cautioned about Ensure and some other things that have supplements. There are a lot of things at health-food stores (like GNC) that can mess with your INR. They basically told me to stay away from (or at least get approval first) before taking or consuming any supplements, shakes etc. Which reminds me - I've been having slimfast once in a while - I better check the label on that sucker! But as Ross has said over and over, you'd have to binge on vit. k to have it really affect your INR much.
Ross
Well-known member
All things can be adjusted for, even Ensure, but Ensure will knock your INR for a loop if your drinking 3 of those a day. What is funny is, the hospitals usually have people drinking either Ensure or Boost, yet they won't give you green beans, salad, or anything else with Vit K in it. I'm wondering if they've woken up yet to the fact that the nutritional drinks are INR killers?
My research showed that green beans have little vitamin K. I eat them with abandon and they never raise my INR. Ensure, of course, must have multi-vitamins in it. I was mistakenly taking multi-vitamin pills after my heart surgery (as I had done before my surgery). It took me awhile to figure out this was messing up my INR. I , alone, had to figure it out, by the way. The doctors never figured it out.
Ross
Well-known member
All things can be adjusted for, but if your drinking 75% to 100% RDA of Vit k PER DAY, it's going to affect your INR without question. Everything else except Natto, has little to no effect on INR unless consumed in mass quantity. Vitamins can be adjusted for, just make sure your taking the same brand all the time. Also, this may sound funny but, vitamins with vit k tend to help stablize INR. Don't know why, but it does.
Just checked my slimfast label... It's got 25% of your RDA of vit. K also, just like ensure (which doesn't sound like a ton to me, but maybe?)... When I get more serious about dieting again in a couple weeks, I was/am planning to use Slimfast quite a bit (2-3 a day) like I've always done... And I've been drinking 1-2 a day on several occasions since surgery already.
Since I'm getting my INR checked again tomorrow, I think I'll run a "test" today and have 2-3 of them, just to see what it does to me. Although it's probably not a good test since we just adjusted my Coumadin dose two days ago to try to raise my INR a little (was 2.1 and likely about to drop more because of reducing my Amiodarone again tomorrow). Ross, when you say it knocks your INR for a loop, are you talking about a few tenths difference, or do you mean like half a point or a point?
Since I'm getting my INR checked again tomorrow, I think I'll run a "test" today and have 2-3 of them, just to see what it does to me. Although it's probably not a good test since we just adjusted my Coumadin dose two days ago to try to raise my INR a little (was 2.1 and likely about to drop more because of reducing my Amiodarone again tomorrow). Ross, when you say it knocks your INR for a loop, are you talking about a few tenths difference, or do you mean like half a point or a point?
They tried to feed me that terrible stuff, I'd hold my nose and try my best to drink it, finally gave up. But I couldn't stand the taste, smell of any food. Didn't stop them from sending a can with every meal. Wife would place the cans on the window sill. By the time I went home the window was full. Wife told them take it all back and credit our account... they did.
Looking back at my coumadin dosage I was only taking 2mg a day in the hospital. It was 4 months before dosage was increased to 4mg and couple months later up to 6mg. Suppose it took that long for my body to get up to steam. Been near 6mg ever since.
Ross
Well-known member
Andy it can knock it way down, say like from 3.0 to 1.5 or lower. 1 can a day may not have much affect, but 2 and 3 or 4 will. If I were you, I wouldn't do anything with it until your INR is stable, then you can add and adjust from there.
Ok, good advice. I didn't realize it could make that big a difference. Going down by a point and a half wouldn't be good since I was only at 2.1 the other day! Glad I asked! I'll just the one today - I'm pretty sure that doesn't affect me much based on the last couple wks.
Ross
Well-known member
Your probably adjusted for that one a day now, but adding more will certainly drop you down some.
Ah, Ross, you opened the door for me and my soapbox.
My body reacts fairly quickly to dietary changes in vit k levels. So, I take a multi-vitamin with with 25mcg vitamin K AND a supplemental vitamin k tablet of 100 mcg. This method works very well for me in that it really helps me stabilize my INR. The reason it seems to work is that my warfarin dosage has been adjusted for that amt of vit k along with what I normally get in my diet. This way, if I overdo it on some high vit k content food the percentage of increase in vit k is smaller than if I were dosing just on the normally dietary vit k.
To put it another way, let's say that my normal dietary vit k is 60 mcg/day. If I added one broccoli spear that would be an increase of nearly 50%. Two broccoli spears and I've doubled my vit k intake for the day. But if my normal supplemental & dietary vit k is 185 mcg/day then that one additional broccoli spear would be an increase of only 17%. Two broccoli spears... not even up to 50% increase yet. Then comes the big question... if you like broccoli, can you eat only 1 spear?
Ross
Well-known member
Not me. They're like Lays potato chips, no one can eat just one! Put anything but Okra on my plate and I'll eat a lot of it. Can't stand that slimy thing.
Broccoli 100 gram portion=141.1mcg of Vit K.
One 5" spear = 52.2mcg
Both are cooked without salt.
In all honesty, I eat about 2 cups worth and it does very little to my INR. Thing is, I have my INR set up to allow a huge amount of Vit K because I do love my greens.
Those of you who live in Texas will appreciate this. We moved to San Antonio from the Chicago area. Everyone talked about okra and how wonderful it was. So, I figured, when in Rome... Went to the grocery store and came back with a bag of frozen okra. I dutifully obeyed the cooking directions and served my family a bowlful of slime. I later asked a friend what the big deal was about okra - we couldn't even choke down the stuff. She said, you're not supposed to cook it that way - you need to bread it and then deep fry it. The breading soaks up the slime. Couldn't bring myself to even think about attempting it:thumbd:
a4wanman
Well-known member
Fried okrey (Southern way of saying it) is the only way to go. Some eat it boiled or pickled, but I can't stomach it that way.
I like okra though I've never had it breaded or fried. My mom cooked it with chicken in tomato sauce.
While I'm not sure I'll ever try it again, Okra is a very interesting plant... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra
