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Stopping plavix
Had triple bypass 1 year ago. Doc says to quit blood thinner Plavix and just continue with baby aspirin. Kinda nervous...anyone else have this directive from their cartiologist?
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@shelby29 It appears that stopping Plavix around a year after coronary bypass surgery is typical.
The evidence for Plavix plus aspirin vs aspirin alone for one year after coronary bypass is pretty convincing:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2023.1125126/full
But long term, what is the answer? I found one 5-year post-op analysis of a group in China, where the patients used Plavix for one year and stopped. It showed the benefits of using Plavix for one year continued over time: https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj-2023-075707.abstract
Usually, the preference is for stopping any anti-coagulant or anti-platelet-clumping therapy as soon as reasonable due to increased bleeding risks from all causes while on the therapy.
Your body has an inflammatory and a healing response to damaged tissues. In the case of the bypass, they damaged all sorts of tissues, first going 'in', and then cutting, inserting, attaching, sewing you up again, and then letting you heal. Over that time, you needed to minimize the effects of inflammation, and of the rough edges where the inserted vessels are. These are prime areas where thrombolytic events can take place. So, you go on Plavix or some other clot buster to keep you from being 'lost' to clots so soon after this expensive and highly technical intervention.
Meanwhile, I'm guessing a year has passed, uneventfully, and you are deemed to be fixed. You can safely go off the Plavix, but your advisor would like you on a 'baby' aspirin daily for life, just as very cheap insurance. To me, this sounds reasonable.