What Kinds Of Blood Thinners Do I Have To Take After An Angioplasty (With Our Without A Stent Procedure)?
Question: What kinds of blood thinners do I have to take after an angioplasty (with our without a stent procedure)?
Answer: Most procedures today involve putting a stent, which is a wire mesh that gets pushed up against the wall of the artery. It takes a period of time for that wire mesh to heal, for the skin as it were, the lining of the blood vessel, to grow over the top of that wire mesh.
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During the time of that healing process, there is a chance that blood clots could form on that stent. And therefore we treat patients with aspirin, which is a blood thinner, and with a combination of another blood thinner called clopidogrel or Plavix. And those two drugs together work synergistically to prevent blood clots from forming.
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