Maybe a quandary following my suspected TIA earlier this month. Plan

The quandary concerns the amount of aspirin to take but I think I'll do what I mention below.

I've a few more years to go before turning 80. In Aug. 2021, I nearly died from a 99% blocked LAD artery ("the widow maker" key artery). A single stent was put into my LAD and things seemed fairly OK following the emplacement of the stent. Early this month, I had a brief visually odd event occur and it was thought by the ER and later MDs that I had suffered a "self-correcting" TIA in that event. The only thing that happened to me in the TIA was that during staring at a word or letter in across-the-screen sentences on my desktop tower computer screen, there were no letters nor words to the RIGHT of a point I had my eyes fixed on: with peripheral vision (and without moving my eyes) I could see letters and words to the LEFT of the point I was staring at on-screen but to the right of the point it seemed as if the words/letters had been erased, were just missing. This might have lasted maybe 2 minutes and then things were normal again. There were no other problems: none with balance, nor with walking, nor with my face, nor with swallowing, etc., etc. Soon after showing up in the ER after this happened, a brain MRI scan was done and the radiologist saw no lesions in my brain so the MDs said I didn't have a stroke. I was told to stop taking (for the heart problem of 2021) the daily EC (enteric coated, to protect my stomach since I can't take NSAIDs) baby aspirin and begin clopidogrel to ensure that a clot wouldn't move into my brain causing a stroke.

A few days ago though I had a nose bleed in the LEFT nostril. I called the ER. The ER triage RN wanted me to report to the ER so I went in. She told me over the phone that the ER folks might have to pack my nose or cauterize the interior of my nostril. After leaving the ER (because the bleeding had stopped with no treatment), I was told to stop taking the clopidogrel and some MD would decide what I should do. An MD did call me yesterday to say that he wanted me to take a full aspirin every day: that's 325 mg. He said "You were taking the EC baby aspirin (which is 81 mg or 25% of a full 325 mg aspirin) when the TIA occurred earlier this month?" I said "Yes" so he strongly implied that the 81 mg EC baby aspirin failed to prevent the TIA--> he used this to justify taking 325 mg aspirin every day. I said I can't take NSAIDs but would consider a daily 325 mg EC aspirin. I did stress though that the place I go to for care has made NSAID mistakes with me 3 times with the last one happening in Aug. 2021. That recent UNcoated baby aspirin (every day for 2.5 months) caused chronic gastritis which can be hard to end, to heal from. I told medical people where I go they even if I take daily 325 mg EC aspirin, that aspirin is absorbed in my intestines, moves into my bloodstream and my blood goes to stomach tissues which are still ailing from past NSAID troubles. I was sent a bottle of 325 EC aspirin today but haven't taken it due to worry about my stomach being damaged all over again. I decided to return to the EC baby aspirin and this time take *2* of them (rather than the single one I took before the clopidogrel) with dinner. I'll inform my medical helpers tomorrow about my new plan which was left up to me to decide what to do about aspirin to keep the blood thinned. [I don't know what other blood thinners exist. Since I really never feel thirsty, I forget to drink water all the time and am often somewhat dehydrated so my blood's thick(er) for that reason. Maybe being much better at water consumption is part of the answer for me-- I don't know.]

Isn't there some way, some test for MDs to study the thickness of blood? Maybe there are clear guidelines on how much aspirin to take after a TIA.

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