Doctor here: A commenter above mentioned natto, and I feel a need to comment about natto and A-Fib (no doubt “AFIV” refers to A-Fib, or atrial fibrillation). First some background: A-Fib is a particular irregular rhythm of the heart, and this condition is a time bomb in that it will promote the formation of blood clots in the heart, which in a few days to weeks, will break loose to flow into the arteries to the brain and cause a stroke. FWIW, I’ve never heard of a 33-year-old with A-fib. I’d bet it’s vax-related. Regardless, your son is stuck with it, and you can’t afford to piss-off the doctor who manages it, arguing about The Vax. (BTW, I’m an un-Vaxed doc who paid a heavy professional and personal price for staying un-Vaxed…)
The standard of care for A-Fib is to treat the patient chronically with a blood thinner, often warfarin (trade name Coumadin) to prevent clot formation. Typically a twice-daily injectable drug, heparin, is given until the therapeutic warfarin dose is dialed in. This treatment is somewhat cumbersome in that the patient must have blood testing frequently to monitor the blood ‘thinness’, or proneness to clot (INR), and the dose of warfarin is adjusted so that the INR falls within a specified target range. Once the dose is stabilized, the blood testing can become tolerably infrequent. There are also newer drugs to thin blood which don’t need monitoring, but warfarin is tried and true and cheap. (Disclaimer: I’ve not managed warfarin since 2015, and am not current on newer blood thinners.)
Sometimes A-Fib is successfully treated with invasive procedures to burn aberrant conductive pathways within the heart. Pacemakers are sometimes used.
If natto truly thins the blood, then the effects of combined blood-thinner and natto might cause the blood to become TOO thin, and create a risk of bleeding too easily. The specific threat is a minor head bump precipitating a massive brain bleed, AKA a hemorrhagic stroke.
If your son is getting placed on a blood-thinner, the prescribing doctor would to need to know about the natto. I’d wager the doctor won’t know squat about it, so he’d presumably be safer OFF natto. BTW, the patient must stay on the blood-thinner for as long as he has A-Fib; i.e. for life. Warfarin, correctly dosed, is extremely effective.
Of course, may G-d forbid, if for any reason your son lost access to blood thinners (in effect loosing access to basic medical care), then he’s a dead man walking, in which case natto couldn’t hurt and might help. And he’d want it starting the same day that access to blood thinners is lost.
Someone else above gave a link regarding myocarditis; note this is not the same as A-fib, and may or may not be pertinent.
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branchandroot
Re: AFIB and Tachycardia
Date: 2023-06-11 08:48 am (UTC)The standard of care for A-Fib is to treat the patient chronically with a blood thinner, often warfarin (trade name Coumadin) to prevent clot formation. Typically a twice-daily injectable drug, heparin, is given until the therapeutic warfarin dose is dialed in. This treatment is somewhat cumbersome in that the patient must have blood testing frequently to monitor the blood ‘thinness’, or proneness to clot (INR), and the dose of warfarin is adjusted so that the INR falls within a specified target range. Once the dose is stabilized, the blood testing can become tolerably infrequent. There are also newer drugs to thin blood which don’t need monitoring, but warfarin is tried and true and cheap. (Disclaimer: I’ve not managed warfarin since 2015, and am not current on newer blood thinners.)
Sometimes A-Fib is successfully treated with invasive procedures to burn aberrant conductive pathways within the heart. Pacemakers are sometimes used.
If natto truly thins the blood, then the effects of combined blood-thinner and natto might cause the blood to become TOO thin, and create a risk of bleeding too easily. The specific threat is a minor head bump precipitating a massive brain bleed, AKA a hemorrhagic stroke.
If your son is getting placed on a blood-thinner, the prescribing doctor would to need to know about the natto. I’d wager the doctor won’t know squat about it, so he’d presumably be safer OFF natto. BTW, the patient must stay on the blood-thinner for as long as he has A-Fib; i.e. for life. Warfarin, correctly dosed, is extremely effective.
Of course, may G-d forbid, if for any reason your son lost access to blood thinners (in effect loosing access to basic medical care), then he’s a dead man walking, in which case natto couldn’t hurt and might help. And he’d want it starting the same day that access to blood thinners is lost.
Someone else above gave a link regarding myocarditis; note this is not the same as A-fib, and may or may not be pertinent.
—Lunar Apprentice