Quote Originally Posted by Gman View Post
If you're on multiple scripts, Coumadin interacts with damn near everything (including your diet), and they're pretty significant interactions. With some of the new boutique blood thinners, what can be a very long list of risky interactions on Coumadin could be significantly reduced to a couple of moderates. Another advantage is when you come off the blood thinners for surgery and go back on again after surgery. Going back on Coumadin can mean quite a few days of Lovenox injections while taking Coumadin to get your levels up. With the newer blood thinners, you can be back to thinned out in a single dose before you leave the hospital.
I understand the cons of Coumadin but there are also pros. The fact that it's been around for so long means that the interactions you mention are very well known and for someone like me who is healthy (they still don't know how I ended up with PE in the first place) and only on one med it doesn't really matter. It's inexpensive, consistent and if I get into a car accident or something the antidote is likely not far away since so many are on it Vitamin K and how to use it is common. The interactions with the newer drugs still aren't fully known and they also don't have an antidote for them should it be needed.

I'm not anticipating any surgeries or other hospital stays so coming off and going back on isn't in the future. I did have a couple of oral surgeries while on it though and got pretty good at knowing how much to cut and when to get my INR right under the 1.8 that the Doctor wanted me at prior to surgery. No Lovenox shots afterwards either as I was able to get it back within the therapeutic range (2.0-3.0 for me) pretty easily. Even if I had to give the shots again for a couple of weeks it's not the end of the world and a couple weeks of those is still cheaper than a single month of the self-leveling meds.

The most paramount thing for me though is what I've already mentioned; price. I can pay about $3/mo for Coumadin or about $400/mo for one of the others. Coupons get it down to a little less than half of that but it's still no comparison. I'm not paying that per month for benefits that I personally won't ever see. Maybe years from now if I need to be on another medication, I get insurance that covers it, generics become available or something becomes life threatening I'll consider it.

As of now I'm not too concerned about it and I'm quite happy with my $10 prescription that lasts me three months that I'm not even sure I need to be on to begin with.

In many cases there are lots of medications available and each affects a person differently and has different pros and cons. For me, this one just works. I don't lose sleep over not being able to take one of the others instead (a couple of years ago I was more concerned about it because I thought it was a bigger deal than I soon realized it was) and it's not really something I think about unless it comes up in conversation like this. I eat well, workout 6 days a week, live an active lifestyle and take care of myself. To me, that's the single most important factor to one's health.

This wasn't a thread about any of this though. I was just talking about how useful a HSA is and how you can have that money work for you and take advantage of compounding interest in yet another form of "retirement" account if you play your cards right.