At my coumadin clinic I specifically asked this question. The pharmacist told me that a normal reading would be .8-1.2. He said they actually check themselves from time to time, most normally it reads at 1.

No idea at time of PE, but I was at 1.3 when they released me from the hospital 2.5 days later ...

wow I am surprised they released you befor your numbers got to a 2

mine was .5 when i was admitted

They didn't check me my INR levels when first admitted to the hospital because they thought I only had pneumonia, bronchitis and anxiety attacks. a day later they did the
d-dimer test (the range was 0-299 and my score was 500) and my INR was 1.1 at the same blood testing. They sent me straight to the CT scan with contrast for my lungs. They said this was standard procedure and were "sure" I didn't have a blood clot, but they were just doing this test as a precaution. Those nurses and docs are so good at staying calm.... of course, it came back as multiple blood clots and I was taken off the antibiotics and hooked up to a heparin drip plus coumedin. After 7 days I went home with lovenox and coumedin and my INR was only 1.2.... I was a bit frightened that they were sending me home to early, but it finally climbed to 2.4 after the combined week of lovenox and warfarin.

HI

A normal INR is 1. It comes back as normal in most people whwn they first have a PE. It only atarts to become important when on warfarin etc.

hope this helps

Kate x

Hi Cupcake,

I too, thought a a normal inr was 1...although i dont really have a clue to be honest! the hospital wouldn't release me either until i was over 2! i'm sure none of this is helpful, but just wanted to join in, hehe! x

I had to go off warfarin for 5 days when I had a colonoscopy. To make sure it was out of my system, my INR was checked right before the procedure. It was .99. Not sure what it was when I was admitted for the PE, but I bet it was the same.

Like Kate37 said, your INR really only becomes relevant when you're on warfarin.

I heard 1.7 to 2.7 is good anything over this is bad. Ida

Hi guys, thanks for the answers! They wouldnt let me leave the hospital until my INR was over 2...and the dr. overseeing me was particularly fussy about it so they actually didnt let me leave until it was 2.5... but then again i never had levonox shots maybee thats why, they just sent me home with the warfarin at that point, but jeez it took days to get my inr to 2.5! But the doctor kinda knew I was completely needle phobic and was demonstrating such anxiety that they had the social worker and psychologist on staff come see me, maybee thats why they didnt send me home with shots?

Hi guys, thanks for the answers! They wouldnt let me leave the hospital until my INR was over 2...and the dr. overseeing me was particularly fussy about it so they actually didnt let me leave until it was 2.5... but then again i never had levonox shots maybee thats why, they just sent me home with the warfarin at that point, but jeez it took days to get my inr to 2.5! But the doctor kinda knew I was completely needle phobic and was demonstrating such anxiety that they had the social worker and psychologist on staff come see me, maybee thats why they didnt send me home with shots?

Hey All!

In a nutshell, Prothrombin Time/International Normalized Ratio is a measure of how long it takes your blood to coagulate when you compare it to the "average" person.

Let's say it takes 15 seconds for a drop of an "average" person's blood to coagulate (This sample is purely hypothetical and has the same relationship to reality as my degree in advanced nuclear medicine as I practice it on other planets!). The "average" person would have an PT/INR of 1. If when you are tested it takes 30 seconds for your blood to coagulate, then it has taken 2 times longer than average so your PT/INR is 2.0. The thinner your blood, the longer it takes to coagulate and the higher the PT/INR number.

PT/INR doesn't measure the amount of coumadin, warfarin, lovenox or other drugs in your system. It just measures how long you take to coagulate.

The problem seems to be that before being put on blood thinners, each of us by virtue of our dietary practices, other medications and general fitness, had a variety of factors that effected our blood "thickness", which also affected many other ways our bodies operate. Some of us had slightly higher than 1 PT/INR, and others slightly less. I suspect none of us could probably spell PT/INR before our PE so we don't know what our base was, or how much it routinely deviated (with or without detrimental effects) based on our lifestyle. For each of us, the dosage of medications required to overcome our pre-set tendency to clot is going to be different, which means the side-effects of the drug itself will be different. Further, the ripple effect the change in the quality of our blood, regardless of whether it is caused by blood thinners or because of a lifestyle change, will vary depending how far we deviate from our original "setting". That shift alone is certainly going to be a stressor on our bodies' performance. We just have to be very careful that in trying to counter those effects we don't undo the intended work of the blood thinning medication (keeping you in that 2-3 range), or create some new complication.

I think was has been helpful is to hear what sort of issues everyone is running up against and what they identify as potential solutions. The cool thing is that we definately have a lot more resources at our fingertips to help navigate through this mess!

Jim