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Medicine

What Should I Know about Anticoagulants and Surgery?

By Troy Holmes
Updated May 17, 2024
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Anticoagulants are medicines that decrease the natural blood clotting effect of blood platelets in the arteries. Taking anticoagulants shortly before or after surgery can be risky, since the decreased clotting effect can cause the patient to bleed longer after the procedure is over. A person worried about anticoagulants and surgery should consult the advice of a doctor, who will likely suggest he stop taking the prescription for several days prior to having any surgical procedure.

Anticoagulant medications are typically prescribed to a person that has a blood-clotting problem, which can cause harmful clots to form in his heart or blood vessels. There are a few side effects that come with anticoagulant medications. These include headaches, stomach pain and the risk of increased bleeding with any injury. Anticoagulants and surgery are not recommended because it adds unnecessary risk to any surgical procedure. This drug limits the body’s natural ability to coagulate blood, which will cause a person to bleed longer after being cut.

There are many medical journals that discuss anticoagulants and surgery because this is a frequent occurrence for people with major heart disease. Most doctors try to bridge the medication with a quick termination of anticoagulation treatment until the surgery is complete. This is more risky for a person with prosthetic heart valves because fresh blood clots can form and cause a heart attack.

When it comes to anticoagulants and surgery a patient must weigh the risk and reward of the surgery. Many people that use anticoagulant need this medication to stay healthy after major heart surgery. Discontinuing this medicine can cause harmful blood clots in the heart or arteries, which can be catastrophic. For this reason non-urgent procedures are typically discouraged because a patient needs to discontinue the medicine for 4-5 days for a surgery to be safe.

There are cases where a person using anticoagulants needs emergency surgery. While this is a risky procedure, there are quick reversing options that can be used. A doctor that encounters a patient with anticoagulants and surgery may decide to take additional precautions to overt catastrophes to include an emergency correction of coagulation, which typically includes vitamin K supplements and possible blood plasma supplements.

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