Aortic valve replacement and coumadin - Heart Disorders Message Board

kwilmont · 04-08-2009, 08:46 AM

My mother had an aortic valve replacement 8 months ago. She has a mechanical valve and has to be on coumadin. She has really bad side affects from taking the coumadin. She is very weak all the time and her muscles hurt so much she can barely walk. The doctor says she cannot take anything else. She can't live the rest of her life feeling like this. What can we do?

JMVB · 04-09-2009, 06:24 AM

Are you sure that the Coumadin is the cause of her discomfort. I have taken Coumadin for almost 30 years and have not had these side effects. Could there be another reason for her discomfort. Do the symptoms change based on her dosage level. With the valve she will need the Coumadin to avoid blood clots at the valve.

kwilmont · 04-09-2009, 04:58 PM

She is better with the lower doses of coumadin , but they have been keeping her at the higher levels and she has been having problems ever since.

Machaon · 04-10-2009, 06:39 AM

I have also had problems with Coumadin, including tunnel vision and severe stomach cramping, especially when it interacted with other medications that I was on.

The tunnel vision problem was solved by cutting the dosage, and the stomach cramp problem was solved by taking the Coumadin at least two hours from my other meds.

Does your mother take any other medications?

harka · 04-11-2009, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwilmont

My mother had an aortic valve replacement 8 months ago. She has a mechanical valve and has to be on coumadin. She has really bad side affects from taking the coumadin. She is very weak all the time and her muscles hurt so much she can barely walk. The doctor says she cannot take anything else. She can't live the rest of her life feeling like this. What can we do?

Hi Kwilmont,

I'm sorry your mother is feeling that way. One thing I will assure you that it is not the coumadin causing her symptoms. When someone has aortic stenosis, the heart is working much harder for a very long period of time to squeeze blood through the tiny hole of the stenotic valve. When the heart is doing this, over time it starts to change in its anatomy to adjust. This usually means the heart muscle becoming thicker to take on more work.

After the stenotic valve is replaced, all of a sudden the heart doesn't have to pump as hard, and additionally blood flows more easily and heart paradoxically has to deal with this extra blood that it didn't have to deal with before because the "train was backed up" so to speak. The problem is the heart has become so thick from years of pumping against a stenotic valve that it can't fill as much. This is an example of diastolic dysfunction, and it results in the person feeling somewhat dizzy, weak, and just plain bad. Usually it takes a few months to adjust, but yeah, 8 months is a long time.

Rest assured, coumadin is NOT (I repeat) NOT the cause of her symptoms, and it is the single most important drug she is taking. Stopping it would have catastrophic consequences and should only be done with the supervision of a medical doctor in specific circumstances.