Warfarin (coumadin) interactions

Hi all,

I'm starting warfarin (coumadin) tomorrow pre-ablation (for anyone who saw my last thread the ablation has been postponed because nobody thought to start me on warfarin! )

Anyway, I was wondering which supplements interact with it?

I take magnesium, taurine, carnitine, ubiquinol (CoQ10), serrapeptase and curcumin as well as various other vitamins and minerals.

The ones I am most concerned about are CoQ10, serrapeptase and curcumin.

Does anyone know if these (or other supplements) should be avoided?

Thanks

Sally

Silentsal.

For the time being drop the Serrapeptase and curcumin as these are the most likely, if at all, to have some impact on your Coumadin. Your goal now is to establish a solid stable INR as quickly as possible and sustain that through the ablation for for a few months afterward. In all likelihood these nutrients will not have too great an impact on your INR but they could have a modest increase or decrease depending on your biochemistry and how you process Coumadin.

Therefore, this isn't the best time for experimenting around and its best when you do experiment with adding such things with Coumadin to do so only when you have a home INR meter as well so that youy can test frequently and make adjustment quickly in response to any changes away of the INR therapeutic range quickly as well as soon as you notice it in response to adding or lowing doses of any of these nutrients at a give dose of Coumadin.

I took Cardiokinase with Coumadin with no problem but I had genetic coumadin resistance and required a very large dose of Coumadin in any event to barely get to 2.0 INR, and so I had a lot of head room to experiment within. However, taking even three 100mg capsules of Cardiokinase only increased my INR by around 0.1 to 0.2 so I went from around 2.1 INR without taking Cardiokinase to at most 2.3 with Cardiokinase taken at a substantial dose.

People who typically only need the usual 2mg to 5 mg of Coumadin to get an INR of 2.5 or higher may have much less leeway with such things as Nattokinase or Cardiokinase and should never combine them without guidance from your EP or Cardio and without first getting a home INR meter and using it religiously every single week to insure a stable INR in a safe range regardless of what nutrient cocktail you are adding.

Shannon

Thanks for the info, Shannon!

I've seen the price of home meters and I won't be buying one since I'm only on warfarin temporarily.

I'll just avoid serrapeptase and curcumin and hope my aches and pains don't get worse!

I also hope my low thyroid doesn't reduce the effectiveness of the warfarin (can't enough thyroxine due to AF atm)

Sally