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What Causes Abdominal Pain While On Plavix In An Elderly Person?

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Posted on Thu, 13 Apr 2017
Question: I'm a 66 yearold woman who has not had a period for 11 years, I'm taking 75mg of plavix and have been for 2 months. This mornoing my body feels like it is cramping and aching and trying to start a period. There is spotting but it's brownish and not a lot. Could this B caused by the plavix or do U think there is more at play here?
doctor
Answered by Dr. Panagiotis Zografakis (47 minutes later)
Brief Answer:
testing is required

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

since your period had stopped 11 years ago, this incident is not related to it. Plavix may be part of the problem because it causes the platelets to malfunction (and thus prevent the formation of clots) and may cause bleeding. Spontaneous bleeding is not common with plavix though and some sort of injury is required. Otherwise testing should be done to check for various bleeding disorders.

The tests I would have asked a patient like you to do are the following:
- a complete blood count
- international normalization ratio (INR)
- actived partial prothrombin time (aPTT)
- bleeding time

I would have also referred my patient to a gynecologist to check whether an underlying or hidden disorder caused the bleeding (like a growth for example).

If everything turned out to be normal and the bleeding went on, I would have blamed plavix and stopped it to see what would happen.

I hope it helps!
Kind Regards!
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
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Answered by
Dr.
Dr. Panagiotis Zografakis

Internal Medicine Specialist

Practicing since :1999

Answered : 3809 Questions

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What Causes Abdominal Pain While On Plavix In An Elderly Person?

Brief Answer: testing is required Detailed Answer: Hello, since your period had stopped 11 years ago, this incident is not related to it. Plavix may be part of the problem because it causes the platelets to malfunction (and thus prevent the formation of clots) and may cause bleeding. Spontaneous bleeding is not common with plavix though and some sort of injury is required. Otherwise testing should be done to check for various bleeding disorders. The tests I would have asked a patient like you to do are the following: - a complete blood count - international normalization ratio (INR) - actived partial prothrombin time (aPTT) - bleeding time I would have also referred my patient to a gynecologist to check whether an underlying or hidden disorder caused the bleeding (like a growth for example). If everything turned out to be normal and the bleeding went on, I would have blamed plavix and stopped it to see what would happen. I hope it helps! Kind Regards!