Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Warfarin Management International Normalized Ratio Self-Testing and Warfarin Self-Dosing

So it seems self-testing is now possible.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/126/5/e52.short
Until recently, most patients taking warfarin (brand name Coumadin) had to visit a laboratory and/or clinic every few weeks for an international normalized ratio (INR) blood test and adjustment of their warfarin dose. It is now possible for a patient to measure his/her INR (self-testing) with a finger-stick drop of blood with use of a small, portable, battery-powered device. Some self-testing patients adjust their dose of warfarin (self-dosing) based on a set of instructions. Even more recently, online systems have been developed to facilitate and improve self-testing and self-dosing. Patients who use self-testing have described it as life changing. A video on the ease and benefits of self-testing by a physician-patient named Dr Michael Schwartz can be viewed on ClotCare at www.clotcare.org/inrselftestingvideo.aspx.

Does Self-Testing Offer Benefits Beyond Ease and Convenience?

Yes. The additional benefits are why Medicare and other insurance companies started paying for self-testing for most patients in March 2008. To understand the other potential benefits, however, one needs some background information. Warfarin is used to prevent blood clots that cause strokes, heart attacks, or other life-threatening conditions. If the dose of warfarin is too small, the INR will be low, and a patient may get a blood clot. If the dose is too large, the INR will be high, and a patient may develop a bleeding problem. In most cases, an INR between 2 and 3 indicates that the warfarin dose is about right. In one large study,1 the risk of stroke caused by a blood clot increased 3 to 4 times when the …

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