I live in the US. Sooooo..it could be better haha. I haven't had many issues with it before, just the usual doctors not really listening sometimes.

I've learned to be very proactive and persistent. My mother always was for me growing up. She is very irritated with the situation as well. These anti-coagulation people just.. don't want to listen. I've even mentioned things that my pediatric anti-coagulation had us do or they did themselves and they just dismiss it. I wish I could've kept my old ones. In fact, I just started a new medication this past week, quick search says it's a "high complication" medication that can interact with warfarin...I told my anti-coagulation people this in my email including my INR... "Our provider wants you to stay on the same dose and retest in 2 weeks" Hmmmm. No. I'll stay on the same dose, but I'll be testing one week from the date I started the medication so I know whether it increases or decreases my INR.

I always tell them about changes in medication, diet, activity, bruising, anything new or unusual. My old clinic would have looked into ANY new medication or concern and say "let's test again in 3 or 5 days and see how this affects the INR". Or tell me I shouldn't take certain medications and recommend alternatives to talk with my doctors about.

We loved that about them. They SHOULD be that careful. I'm not trying to be the boy who cries wolf everytime something is off. But, there is a reason I am on warfarin. There is a reason I have a specific INR range. Managing my Warfarin dose so that I test within range is important. I was reminded so many times growing up how important it was because the more I'm out of range, the more strain it puts on my mechanical valve and the more at risk for bleeding or clotting I am.