What foods should my mom NOT eat while on blood thinning medicine?
Her Dr told her to stay away from leafy green veggies like lettuce, brussle sprouts, cabbage, and broccoli. We have looked at several “lists” of foods containing vitamin K online but no two lists are the same.
One list says that celery has only a few micromiligrams of K while another says it has 150 miligrams.
One list has onions at 150 miligrams yet, I can’t find onions on any other list.
How many miligrams or micromiligrams of K are safe for her to ingest while on the blood thinning medicine? And can someone direct me to a REALLY reliable list of foods with vitamin K? I just don’t hold a lot of confidence in the lists I have found which I have included below…
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminK/
http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=112
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/food/vitamin-k-foods.htm
Any other guidance is much appreciated!
Thanks for the advice. Her problem is, after she had the blood clot, the doctors at first couldn’t figure out why her blood wasn’t reacting to the cumadin they way it should, it wasn’t thinning enough. then they examined her diet and found she was eating a lot of foods with Vitamin K. The Vitamin K was causing her blood to clot while the cumadin was trying to thin it…
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I’ve been on Coumadin for five years and had a lot of these kinds of questions when I started. Two pieces of advice. Don’t get too caught up in the exact amounts of vitamin K. They will not only vary from list to list, but no two pieces of food will have the exact amount in them. What you need to do is just be aware of what foods are high in vitamin K.
Also, she doesn’t have to avoid these foods, she just has to eat them consistently. If she loves having a salad every day, she should keep eating them. She just can’t suddenly stop eating them. If she likes broccoli, she should eat it once or twice a week, every week. Or broccoli one week and spinach the next. Whatever she does, just be consistent.
The biggest thing to watch out for, almost more than foods, is medications. She should be careful about any medications and supplements she takes. Some things like excedrine, ibuprofen, some cold medicines, even pepto bismol can thin your blood too much. Other medications or supplements can stop your body from absorbing vitamin k, which will render the blood thinner useless. She should ask her doctor before taking any other medications.