All About Anticoagulant

Anticoagulants are drugs that assist in preventing your blood from hardening or “clotting.”

Your body does require the ability to clot in order to assist seal wounds both inside and outside of your body. Unnecessary clots, on the other hand, might produce life-threatening complications. Anticoagulants, although being referred to as “blood thinners,” do not really thin your blood.

They just prevent your body’s normal clotting mechanism from taking place.

Varied medications have different effects on different aspects of the coagulation process.

A DVT, or deep vein thrombosis (blood clot in the leg or lower limb), for example, can occur if you have a medical condition that makes you immobile or if you have sat for an extended amount of time without getting up and stretching, such as when travelling by airline, vehicle, or train. If a blood clot forms from a vein or artery in the leg, it might be caught in the blood arteries of the lung, in which it can form a clot (pulmonary embolism). This is a potentially fatal medical condition. A clot stuck in an artery in the brain can also trigger a stroke.

Anticoagulant therapy is being used to avoid the creation of new blood clots as well as to treat current clots by stopping them from expanding in size. It also minimises the danger of blood clot embolization in other important organs such as the heart and brain.

What are the many kinds of blood thinners?

Blood thinners are classified into several types:

• Anticoagulants, including heparin or warfarin (commonly known as Coumadin), slow down your body’s clotting process.

• Antiplatelet medications, including aspirin and clopidogrel, prevent platelets, which are blood cells, from clumping together to create a clot.

People who have experienced a heart attack are the most likely to benefit from antiplatelets.

How can I safely use blood thinners?

When using a blood thinner, make sure to follow the instructions exactly.

Certain foods, medications, vitamins, and alcohol may interact with blood thinners.

Make sure your doctor is aware of all of the prescription medications you are taking.

You may require regular checkups to see how effectively your blood clots.

It is critical to ensure that you are taking enough medication to prevent clots but not so much that you are bleeding.

What are the risks of blood thinners?

• The most common adverse effect of blood thinners is bleeding.
• They can also induce stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhoea.

Other adverse effects may occur depending on the type of blood thinner you are using.

If you see any of the following symptoms of severe bleeding, contact your healthcare provider:

• Menstrual bleeding that is significantly heavier than usual
• Urine that is red or brown
• The presence of crimson or black bowel motions
• Bleeding from the gums or nostrils that does not cease within a short period of time
• Vomit that is brown or bright crimson in colour
• Coughing up something bright crimson
• Pain that is unbearable, such as a headache or stomach ache
• Bruising that is unusual
• A wound that continues to bleed
• A catastrophic fall or a head injury Dizziness or weakness

What these medications do

Antiplatelets and anticoagulants both work to keep clots from forming in your blood arteries, but they do it in different ways. Antiplatelets obstruct platelet binding or the mechanism that initiates the development of blood clots. Anticoagulants disrupt the coagulation process by interfering with proteins in your blood. These proteins are known as factors. Anticoagulants work by interfering with several mechanisms to prevent clotting.

Anticoagulants and antiplatelets list

There are several anticoagulants available, including:

• enoxaparin (Lovenox)
• edoxaban (Savaysa)
• dabigatran (Pradaxa)
• apixaban (Eliquis)
• fondaparinux (Arixtra)
• warfarin (Coumadin)
• Heparin
• rivaroxaban (Xarelto)

Regular antiplatelets include:

• clopidogrel (Plavix)
• prasugrel (Effient)
• Dipyridamole
• dipyridamole/aspirin (Aggrenox)
• ticagrelor (Brilinta)
• ticlopidine (Ticlid)
• eptifibatide (Integrilin)

Uses

If you have one or more of the following conditions, your doctor may advise you to take an anticoagulant or antiplatelet medication.

Every one of those can cause pooling of blood in your vessels, resulting in the development of a clot:

• issues in blood circulation caused by heart disease
• erratic heartbeat
• birth defect of the heart

If you’ve undergone heart valve surgery, your doctor may additionally recommend one of these medications.

While you consume warfarin, you will be subjected to frequent blood testing known as international normalised ratio (INR) tests.

The results assist your doctor in determining if the medicine is at the correct level in your body. If you are taking many drugs, your doctor may order further testing.

In conclusion:

Anticoagulants are drugs that keep blood from clotting as quickly or efficiently as it should.

Anticoagulants are sometimes referred to as blood thinners by some people. Nevertheless, taking an anticoagulant does not make the blood any thinner; it only causes it to clot less easily.