He is now a candidate for "The Watchman", a small implant which stops the pooling in his heart which is where these clots begin and causing him some bleeding.
45 days after the implant (size of a quarter) he can get off of warfarin.
I'm sooooo hopeful for him.
I have afib and a brain bleeding disorder that has caused two subdural hematomas, The bottom line is that I had to stop all blood thinners (tried plavix and warfarin, got brain bleeds on both).
I looked into the watchman — it is a device that goes into the sac in the heart that sometimes develops blood clots because it is not well flushed each heartbeat when one has afib. In my case, I had a procedure on the outside of my heart so they clamped this sac and while it reduces heart blood flow, I also have no blood clotting from this source.
So far so good. But I do get told about this little clamp every-time I have a chest x-ray. Yup, its still there.
I now have afib but can tolerate it and try to control heart rate using meds. Good luck to you friend. KC