This video is about Eliquis, a commonly used anticoagulant medicine. The generic name for this is apixaban. Most people with atrial fibrillation have a high chance for stroke, and Eliquis decreases the chance of that happening by a lot. In this video I talk about how I use Eliquis in my Cardiology Practice. Visit my website CardioGauge.com for a personalized assessment of your heart health.
Hi i’m dr ritter from cardiogage.com i’m a cardiologist in new york this video is about eliquis or apixaban a pixaban is an anticoagulant medicine it decreases the chance of blood clots forming in your body its main use is for preventing stroke and atrial fibrillation and it decreases the chance of stroke by about 50 in this setting it was developed as an
Alternative to warfarin or coumadin which for many years was the only medical option for decreasing the chance of stroke in atrial fibrillation it has important advantages it has a fixed dose so the dose doesn’t change as it does with warfarin it doesn’t require frequent blood testing like warfarin does which patients usually get blood tests every two to four
Weeks while they’re on it forever when a person’s on a pixel band i’ll check a blood test on them every six months or so to see that they don’t have anemia and their kidney function hasn’t changed so it’s a lot less testing than warfarin a real big advantage also is that you can eat whatever you want when you take a pizza ban it doesn’t change the level of the
Medication in your body whereas with warfarin if you were to for example have a lot of salad for a few days in a row that would make the warfarin level very low and ineffective for preventing strokes temporarily so you can eat whatever you want when you take eliquis without changing the effect some disadvantages of the medication obviously cost it’s much more
Expensive than warfarin insurance plans have variable coverage so the only way to know how much it would cost for you would be to go to the pharmacy and ask them basically certainly you can save money on the co-pays for the blood tests but overall the cost of the medication usually is much higher for a person as compared to warfarin another disadvantage is that
Currently we don’t have an antidote for eliquis although shortly hopefully we will because if a person has bleeding with aliquous and they go to the hospital generally we just wait for the bleeding to stop or try to take care of the bleeding by doing a procedure but we can’t stop the effect of the eliquis whereas with warfarin there’s an antidote and you can be
Given that antidote and the effect of the warfarin is stopped immediately in any event hopefully over the next months to a year we will have an antidote for eliquis the main side effect that i see for my patients is minimal nuisance type bleeding that doesn’t require stoppage of the medication easy bruising but it doesn’t really seem to cause much in the way of
Other side effects in my experience like stomach ache or headache or whatever it doesn’t seem to cause much of that people generally feel well while they’re taking aliquippus so while eliquis can cause major bleeding for sure three percent of people get it per year it decreases the chance of stroke a lot the average person with atrial fibrillation has a stroke
Risk of somewhere around 10 per year if they take the aliquous then the risk is somewhere around four to five percent per year this is a major decrease in the chance of stroke it really adds up over time so over 10 years that would be a 40 to fifty percent decrease in the absolute risk for stroke and that makes it worth it to tolerate the potential side effect
For major bleeding a stroke is an irreversible thing it causes permanent damage to the brain and the person’s permanently affected there’s no going back on a stroke whereas with major bleeding generally that can be treated the problem solved and then the person goes on without any major ill effect from having had the bleeding so while major bleeding does happen
With a pixaband quite frequently it’s uh in my opinion worth it to tolerate that risk because it decreases the chance for a stroke so much and now a special note from our sponsor actually there is no sponsor i’m not paid by anybody to make this video and i have no financial interest in eliquis overall i find epix a band to be a very useful medication and i have
Many patients for whom i prescribe it with the purpose of decreasing the chance of stroke in atrial fibrillation be sure to like and subscribe for more content and visit my website cartiergage.com for a personalized assessment of your heart health
Transcribed from video
Eliquis (apixaban). Basics about this medicine, its use, effectiveness, and side effects. By CardioGauge
