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Coumadin withdrawl symptoms

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2004. At that time she also had blood clots in both lungs.  She was hospitalized and put on heparin.  She was scheduled for a mastectomy.  They stopped the heparin.  Within a few hours, her condition worsened.  She was 'out of it'.  We thought she was near death.  We asked the doctors to resume the heparin.  Within one hour she showed improvement.  Within 4-6 hours she was eating and sitting up.  The doctors said that resuming the heparin was not the reason for her improvement.  This past week, her coumadin was stopped for four days.  On the fifth day, {the day she was to resume the coumadin}.  She was unresponsive. She was extremely sleepy.  We called the hospice nurse and she said that this was the beginning of the end.  We explained to the nurse the situation with the heparin in May 2004.  We asked her if we could crush the coumadin and get mom to take it.  The nurse said yes.  Within five hours, my mother 'woke up' and even got out of bed.  My question is this.  Can stopping coumadin, or any blood thinner cause these symptoms?  The doctors don't think so, but we have witnessed this twice.  I appreciate your help.  
Thank you
meggismom
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Avatar universal
Dear meggismom:  It is not possible for us to speculate on your mother's particular situation.  Heparin is a fairly fast acting blood thinner that is given intravenously.  Coumadin, on the other hand, is an oral blood thinner that works by interfering with the production of clotting factors in the liver and takes several days to acheive its anticoagulant affect.
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Avatar universal
Hello:  Thank you for the quick response. I am aware of how both drugs work and that coumadin is oral and therefore gets into the blood stream and its effective level much slower than IV heparin.  In general, can blood thinners give that effect when they are stopped and such rapid improvement when they are resumed.  It seems unusual, but again, we saw it happen twice.
I appreciate your thoughts.
meggismom
Helpful - 0

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