“I would suspect that a very large percentage of people over 50 are on blood thinner.”
Not on the one she is on. A heart specialist is still deciding whether or not my significant other should be on that one due to the possibly severe side effects.
He is 80 and I’m 81 and neither of us has ever been on blood thinner.
Whether you are or are not has absolutely nothing to do with the public in general.
Clot in a lung, you get blood thinner.
Clot in leg, you get blood thinner.
A Fib...you get blood thinner.
High blood pressure.....
Heart surgery?
Stroke?
The percentage is not as high as I had thought, but it is still substantial and the medical literature (I am not connected to the medical profession) that I see complains that blood thinners are not used often enough.
One of the links:
“About 10 percent of Americans 75 and older, and 6 percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 used one or more blood thinners in 2007. In contrast, less than 1 percent of people younger than 65 used a blood thinner.”
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20000406/blood-thinners-age
Not to disagree with your doctor, as there are medical conditions which will suffer from the use of blood thinners. Wet macular degeneration, for instance, can be aggravated by blood thinner.