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For stroke prevention, your options for anticoagulation or blood thinner therapy include warfarin and the newer medications, which we refer to as the novel oral anticoagulation medications. Now let me talk a little bit about both medications. The warfarin is cheaper and most insurances will approve warfarin. But the issue with warfarin is you would need frequent blood draws because your blood level of INR, which determines how “thin” your blood is, has to be specific between the number two and three, and that requires multiple blood draws. Also, warfarin interacts with a lot of medications, so it’s a little bit tougher to take warfarin compared to the novel oral anticoagulants. Examples of the novel oral anticoagulant medications include things like Xarelto, Eliquis, Pradaxa. Now these medications don’t need blood draws and they’re pretty easy to take and they have rare interactions with other medications.
