BuffyBear's Journal, 03 March 2015

Yikes you deserve a calm one. Hope it settles down. 

I do hope today is a much better day for you - however, if you live in Michigan you will have to stay home - these roads are crazy! 

Gramma Mary -- with you there....I'm in Ann Arbor, where are you? 

nicholaix - so far so good.  

Gramma Mary - I live in NC and we had our share of bad weather last week.  

Wow... I bleed from the plavix but not to the point of your hubby. Hope you can get a little rest this evening. 

Classic - He has his first doctor's visit tomorrow. I am hoping they will cut the dosage. He is not happy - found out he has to leave the packing in his nose until tomorrow morning.  

Ohhhh - not fun to be in the ER. Hope all is well now. 

Oh man. Try and get some rest. It's as stressful for you as for him. 

I know you were as scared as he is. My hubby is on Plavix too. He hasn't had a nosebleed but he is terrified not to take it. He stopped taking it once and had another heart attack. Meds are scarey but it's worse if you don't take them. I hope there is a smaller dosage he can take. Hope you both get some rest. 

Hoping DH is well. Believe me understand crazy busy, we've also been working through lunch and extra hours, not so much as some other departments in the company. But come home mentally beat up. Take at easy and get some rest.  

Mom..... thanks for the post. I had labs done and they were perfect.... as they were prior to the stroke. I have an appt. with the doc on Thursday and was going to ask him to take me off my Plavix. Going to rethink this. 

CR - I wonder how different a stroke is compared to a heart attack? I am interested in what your doctor thinks. If he thinks its okay, I don't blame you for not wanting to take any meds. My DH's doctor told him he had to take it for the rest of his life. This was after his second heart attack. He is also diabetic and on insulin. 

My stroke was caused by a plaque thrown off by my heart.(genetics).I like to think in general I'm very healthy. That's what I keep telling myself. But the built up plaque at the aortic arch will haunt me. If the weather permits I'll see him tomorrow, but doubting that as they're predicting another 6-10". I'll let you know. 

Mom2Boxers Plavix is not an anticoagulant, it's actually an antiplatelet. It helps prevent clots from forming. It may make you bruise a bit more easily but it's actually not much different than an aspirin. For someone who likely has a buildup of plaque in their arteries, Plavix would prevent any platelets (a type of blood cell responsible for clotting) from sticking to that plaque and causing a blockage. You don't have nearly the bleeding risk as you would with blood thinners, like Coumadin or xarelto. A heart attack is different than a stroke in that it is the coronary arteries that are affected (arteries that supply the heart with oxygen) where as a stroke could be any vessel in the brain. When someone has a history of heart attack they will generally be on preventative meds for the rest of their life because they are at an increased risk of having another. That's not necessarily the case with strokes. There are multiple potential causes of a stroke, but a heart attack is always caused by a blockage in those coronary arteries. I hope that helps. :)  

WOW, yes it does help me! Thank you very much! I never really thought about it and I guess in my own ignorance I assumed the two were associated with the heart. Thank you again! You cleared that up very nicely. CR - I suppose you could get off the Plavix at some point, by what Yolanda says. 

Thanks everybody!