How does a blood-thinner cause a stroke? I thought it was the other way around, that they are supposed to prevent clotting and stroking. I'm honestly asking.
Up front I’m not a physician, but I know there are a couple kinds of strokes (lack of adequate oxygen supply to a portion of the brain) - most are caused by blood clots, but about fifteen percent are caused by excessive bleeding (usually from a burst blood vessel) - blood thinners as one might expect when inappropriately used can have the negative side effect of causing uncontrolled bleeding, usually in the digestive track - when my wife had hip-replacement surgery about fifteen years ago she was placed on the thinner Coumadin for awhile and I remember how concerned the physicians were that she always get the precise dosage and how closely she was monitored to make sure she had no ill-effects from the medication - they took off of it as soon as they felt she was beyond real danger of clots from the surgery - my comment was kind of facetious, but the story reminded me of a friend from my high school class of sixty years ago who had an appendectomy a few years ago and within a couple of days ended up in a nursing home with a stroke - while the stroke probably results from a clot aftereffect of the surgery, I’m always a bit suspicious, especially after what would seem to be a fairly routine surgical procedure, that it could result from one more medical misadventure with medication gone wild - just something to think about I guess...