epederal/blood thinners

[ramonasc]

my friend has a generic blood disorder and must take blood thinners daily.  she has developed severe back pain and has been instructed to have an epederal for the pain.  the docter chosen to give the epederal will not do so until she has not taken blood thinner medication for 5 days.  her family doctor is furious and says she can not lay off the thinners.  my question is: why would she need to not take the medication just to have an epederal. what are the health risk

[ramonasc]

  she is on coumadin.  after reviewing your comment, she is rethinking whether she will have the surgery or not.  she is seeing her doctor today and maybe they will come up with something they can all agree on.  thank you for responding to my question.  You have a great day

Ramona

[namnam46]

Hi ramonasc,

First, I want to welcome you to the Pain Management Forum and let you know that we are glad you found this Forum. I want to let you know that there are NO Doctors on this Forum, only CP  {Chronic Pain}  Patients that help each other with our OWN expertise and experiences that we have developed through our OWN CP Issues.

How VERY FORTUNATE your friend is to have a WONDERFUL Friend like you!!  I, too, am on blood thinners, for life, and have had to face the VERY same problem that your Friend is having to face.  I just underwent 2 epidurals as well as 1 RFA (Radio Frequency Ablation) and I asked the same question.  The reason is that there are NUMEROUS TINY blood vessels running in the areas where they do the epidurals and should they hit one of those it could cause an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, if not potentially, deadly problem of hemorrhaging and NOT being able to stop the bleeding.  They HAVE to make this a prerequisite for this procedure to not only protect your Friend but ALSO themselves from a lawsuit.  IF it is impossible for her to lay off the thinners then she MIGHT not be able to have the procedure. :(  

If you don't mind my asking which thinners she/he is on?  I'm on Plavix and aspirin. There's also even MORE potent ones such as Coumadin, which is EXTREMELY dangerous to be on when having surgery.  I was put on that after I had a stent put into my artery in my heart because the stent had caused a heart attack.  They had to go back in and place a second stent that same night and because of the coumadin, the next morning I ALMOST DIED because I began to hemorrhage and my blood pressure dropped to 50/30 and it took them over 45 minutes to stop the hemorrhage and took 3 pints of blood to replenish my body.  I was in ICU for 3 days.  So you can see what they need to be careful when doing ANY procedure when a patient is on blood thinners.  

I HOPE that her two Doctor's can get together and MAYBE work out something that can be beneficial to your Friend.  :)

Please keep us informed as to what happens with your Friend.  I wish her/him the VERY best and again Thank You for being such a GREAT Friend..........Sherry  :)