Drugs to stop blood clotting - who knows the difference?

[secondtry]

A bit of help please. My wife has just had, out of the blue, a stroke and the Portsmouth Hospital have put her on aspirin for 14 days and Clopidogrel for life. Here, warfarin & NOACs e.g. Edoxaban are often discussed re stroke prevention but Clopidogrel hardly ever to my knowledge. Does anyone know the difference?

[10gingercats]

Secondtry....I just looked up Clopidogrel and Aspirin after stroke and it sounds as if this is 'spot on' treatment for 90 days after stroke.....and then other meds. are given. Dolook it up for yourself. I just typed in Clopidogrel.

A stroke out of the blue is nasty. I do hope she makes a ful recovery.

[secondtry in reply to 10gingercats]

Thanks Gingercats, shock & a steep learning curve but so far recovery signs are slow but good. Have a healthy weekend.

[BobD Volunteer]

Clopidogrel and aspirin are both anti-platelet drugs which are commonly used after a stroke. Anticoagulants like warfarin and DOACs are used to prevent stroke for people with AF. Hope that explains.

[secondtry in reply to BobD]

Thanks Bob, I clearly need to do some more homework. Hope your recovery is steadily going in the right direction.

[10gingercats]

When I had a TIA I instinctively wanted to write,anything, down ...the act of using the brain.I also read and got husband to read to me ......Scrabbled a bit after that.Clearly also be guided by the team looking after your wife but I found this helped enormously. At that point I did not know if it was a light TIA or something more signif. Thankfully, it was a light one and caused by a hole in the heart that had encouraged an embolism.

[secondtry]

Thanks Gingercats glad you are OK, early days for my wife but it is also a light one and today was a 'very tired' day in bed mostly, so I expect the next month of the recovery will be a bit of a rollercoaster.

[MarkS]

Hi Secondtry, I also use QA at Portsmouth. Did your wife receive thrombectomy or thrombolysis as an emergency treatment there? See:

nhs.uk/conditions/stroke/tr...

The key question is, does your wife have AF? If not, then aspirin and heparin are fine. If she does then she really needs to be on anticoagulants. If she appears not to have AF, it would still be worth checking over a period of time for any irregularity in her heart beat.

She will also have an ultrasound scan of her carotid artery to check if there is any narrowing there. If there is, that could be operated on.

I hope she recovers well.

Best wishes

Mark

[secondtry]

Thanks Mark for the useful info and your get well wishes. She didn't have emergency treatment and although no AF she is being lined up for 24hr monitors over the next 2 months.

You probably know already but this was our first experience of QA for many years and although in the distant past its reputation has not been good, I was very impressed not just by the standard of medical care but the personal genuine approach of all nursing staff. In the past, for AF etc I have always gone to Royal Surrey, Guildford but have changed preference to QA now!