Hey Tracy,
I don't have any experience with Arixtra I'm afraid, but I have aps too and was on lovenox for it until recently when I was switched to fragmin shots. I just wanted to say that both lovenox and fragmin have warnings against spinal anesthesia or spinal taps; I think that's just standard for injectible blood thinners (I say injectible as I'm not sure at all if coumadin has the same warning or not).
Now lovenox lasts for 12 hours with a half life of 4.5 hours which is why people usually have to self-inject twice a day on lovenox. From what I can tell arixtra stays in your body for 24 hours and has a very long half-life (17 hours). Thus depending on the hour of the day your spinal shot will take place (if it's early in the morning and you take arixtra on the afternoon of the previous day etc etc etc) I think it probably makes sense for you to be off the med for at least 24 hours or more so that you're sure it's not in your system anymore.
I don't think you should postpone the procedure because of this as if you're off the injections for 24 hours (and if you don't do Wednesdays shot either then it'll be closer to 48 hours actually!) you really shouldn't have any bleeding complications. However I do think that since you seem to have a few concerns about all this and some unanswered questions (quite understandably too, I think we all would) that it might be a good idea for you to call your doctor and discuss this all with him once more.
Hope everything goes well with the cortisone injection!
:flowery:
Zoi
I don't have any experience with Arixtra I'm afraid, but I have aps too and was on lovenox for it until recently when I was switched to fragmin shots. I just wanted to say that both lovenox and fragmin have warnings against spinal anesthesia or spinal taps; I think that's just standard for injectible blood thinners (I say injectible as I'm not sure at all if coumadin has the same warning or not).
Now lovenox lasts for 12 hours with a half life of 4.5 hours which is why people usually have to self-inject twice a day on lovenox. From what I can tell arixtra stays in your body for 24 hours and has a very long half-life (17 hours). Thus depending on the hour of the day your spinal shot will take place (if it's early in the morning and you take arixtra on the afternoon of the previous day etc etc etc) I think it probably makes sense for you to be off the med for at least 24 hours or more so that you're sure it's not in your system anymore.
I don't think you should postpone the procedure because of this as if you're off the injections for 24 hours (and if you don't do Wednesdays shot either then it'll be closer to 48 hours actually!) you really shouldn't have any bleeding complications. However I do think that since you seem to have a few concerns about all this and some unanswered questions (quite understandably too, I think we all would) that it might be a good idea for you to call your doctor and discuss this all with him once more.
Hope everything goes well with the cortisone injection!
:flowery:
Zoi
