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Old 02-05-15, 07:39 AM
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indyfabz
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Originally Posted by banerjek
Those of you who ride with blood thinners, how did it affect your cycling when you got put on them, and what kinds of adjustments did you have to make a year or more later?
I have been riding on Sodium Warfarin since 1990 after I had the aortic valve I was born with replaced with a mechanical one. The drug does not affect my energy level, and I have never heard of that as a side effect.

Maybe the newer thinners can cause low energy levels. If that is truly the case, he should ask his care provider if switching to Warfarin or some other thinner is a good option. One of the newer thinners advertises that there are no dietary restrictions. There is sometimes a misconception that you cannot eat foods high in Vitamin K (e.g., certain green, leafy vegetables like kale) when on Warfarin since Vitamin K counteracts the drug. That is simply not true. If you eat a relatively consistent diet you should have no problem. It's usually when you make a drastic dietary change that ups your Vitamin K intake that you can drop below a therapeutic level.

Are you sure it's not psychological? Maybe he's afraid of crashing on blood thinners. While there is certainly a chance of exacerbated consequences from crashing on blood thinners, it doesn't necessarily mean the end of the world. A few years ago, someone kicked up a stick into my front wheel as I was starting to power up a small hill. I was doing about 16 mph when the front wheel locked up and I went flying. I smashed my shoulder into the road and my helmeted head scraped the pavement. Split the end of my collar bone. Other than a little extra bleeding that caused minor bruising around my right breast, being on thinners did not make the consequences any worse than they would have otherwise been.
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