Tuesday 7 July 2015

Who will monitor my blood levels?

I think I have all my appointments and phone calls set up and made. I saw my family doctor who was quite excited to see me and heard from Halifax today. All the blood work stuff for my anti-rejection levels managed to get worked out and are being monitored by both Halifax and Toronto so that is excellent.

My INR levels (blood thinner) are being a bit problematic as no one seems to know who is responsible for adjusting the medication. I had been getting emails from the INR nurse in Toronto telling me my levels and what adjustments to make which was incredibly convenient for me. I assumed I would be transferred to someone here but my family doctor says it would make more sense for the team in Halifax to adjust meds as they're more specialized in the area. Today, the Halifax team told me that it would be better for Toronto to keep monitoring it for me as they're more specialized. So I hope someone will take responsibility for me.

My INR levels had been fairly stable over the past two months or so but since getting back to the Maritimes, I've been eating way more fresh greens which messes around with absorption rates. My levels were slightly high last week (I did eat a lot of spinach) and no one has told me what to do. I am being careful not to cut myself as it'll take even longer than usual for my blood to clot.

The ideal is to eat the same amount of greens every day so the medication can be adjusted to the level of greens consumed. But I find that a really hard way to eat as tend to buy some lettuce or spinach, eat it, and then buy more two weeks later. I'll probably be more consistent over the summer with all the fresh greens everywhere but will resort back to my sporadic greens consumption in the winter.

Stupid food messing around with my medication absorption rates.

2 comments:

LittleM said...

I love that you brought this up. I always think this is probably a way bigger issue than is talked about in the transplant community (or so it seems). Hope you share any more you learn about this area :)

Unknown said...

Lots of kale for you!