What types of blood-thinning medications are available for Atrial Fibrillation

Blood thinning medications are very important in atrial fibrillation. So those who have atrial fibrillation, the heart is now beating irregularly and the atria is not contracting properly. These collecting chambers at the top are quivering or fibrillating and the risk of blood pooling and clotting therefore increases. Your doctor will make an assessment of your risk of stroke from atrial fibrillation. We know the risk of stroke is higher in those with atrial fibrillation than those without. 20 to 30 percent of all strokes are due to atrial fibrillation. The risk of having a stroke can be up to five-fold higher for those with atrial fibrillation than those with normal rhythm. Therefore it's very important to assess one stroke risk. Your doctor will do this using various scores and looking at your other stroke risk factors and these could be impairment of the heart function, blood pressure, diabetes, age, previous stroke, previous heart disease, previous vascular disease. Your doctor will go through this and make a decision about whether it's therefore appropriate that you take a blood thinning medication to reduce your risk of stroke from atrial fibrillation. If your risk of stroke is deemed to be low, you will not require blood thinners. But if it's deemed to be moderate or high, you will require blood thinners. These blood thinners are very effective at reducing your risk of stroke by often over two thirds reduction in risk. So it's very important this assessment is made and the appropriate drug is used. Now there are various blood thinners. We previously had warfarin which was the main blood thinner used to reduce the risk of stroke. Warfarin is a tablet taken at the same time every day and blood tests are needed to measure whether the blood is thin enough or too thin or too thick and blood tests are regularly needed to monitor this. However, in recent times, modern blood thinners have been used. These are called direct oral anticoagulants. Anticoagulant means blood thinner. These drugs are used more and more and have been shown in trials to be very effective at reducing risk of stroke and potentially safer than warfarin because monitoring is no longer needed for these drugs. is a constant or much more constant level of blood thinning to reduce the risk of stroke. Therefore regular blood tests are not needed like Warfarin and these tablets are just taken daily. There are different blood thinners available, Apixaban, Edoxaban, Rivaroxaban, Dabigatran, these are some of the different ones available. All of them are regular tablets daily either once a day or twice a day. Your doctor will choose an appropriate one for you and then you'll be taking that regularly. Initially you may need blood tests before starting them and maybe a period after starting to make sure things such as your kidney and liver tests are checked to ensure you're on the appropriate dose but once started these are very effective at reducing the stroke risk from atrial fibrillation. you