Glossary
After being treated for your first unprovoked blood clot, should you take blood thinners indefinitely or stop?
What should you know?
After being treated for a first unprovoked deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE), the chances of having another blood clot are about 10 in 100, and this chance increases over time. Your individual risk of having another PE or DVT may be higher or lower than this average, depending on a number of risk factors, such as biologic sex, age, body mass index (BMI), and laboratory test results.
Treatment
To help prevent another DVT or PE, you will get (or continue to get) one of the following types of blood thinner medicines:
Anticoagulants
Antiplatelets
Problem with treatment
Unfortunately, the main side effect of blood thinners is the increased chance of major bleeding. Your risk of major bleeding may be high or low, depending on a number of risk factors, such as age, history of past bleeding, liver or kidney disease, blood pressure, blood platelet count, past stroke, anemia, alcohol use, and number of falls.
Topics that you should discuss with your healthcare provider
After being treated for your first unprovoked blood clot, should you continue to take blood thinners indefinitely or stop?
Topics that you should discuss with your healthcare provider
It will be important to speak with your healthcare professional to find out:
You can also speak with your healthcare provider about the following issues:
Explanation of outcomes
Outcomes are things that may happen as a consequence of a treatment, such as taking blood thinners. To make a clinical recommendation, the American Society of Hematology (ASH) guideline panel looked at the best available research to understand the benefits and drawbacks of each option. We selected outcomes that are critical to making the decision: PE, DVT, major bleeding, and death. Below are explanations of PE, DVT, and major bleeding.
Pulmonary embolism (PE) - moderate severity
Deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
Major bleeding
Assess your values
To make an individual recommendation, tell us how much you value each outcome as a health state, using the scales where 0 is the worst imaginable health state (or "dead") and 100 is the best imaginable health state (or "perfect health"). For example, if you feel a health state is preferable, you may place the scale above 50 and closer to 100. But, if you prefer to avoid a health state, you may place the scale below 50 and closer to 0.
In my opinion my current health state is equivalent to:
0
Dead
50
100
Perfect Health
50
In my opinion having PE is equivalent to:
0
Dead
50
100
Perfect Health
50
In my opinion having DVT is equivalent to:
0
Dead
50
100
Perfect Health
50
In my opinion having major bleeding is equivalent to:
0
Dead
50
100
Perfect Health
50