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What Causes Swelling In Knee And Hematoma After Knee Replacement Surgery?

Posted on Mon, 28 Dec 2015

Question: my husband has a stent and takes plavix. That surgery was in XXXXXXX 2015. He had knee replacement surgery Oct 13, 2015 and due to a blood clot that was detected the same week of the operation, he was given lovenox and coumadin. by the way, he stopped taking plavix for the operation. He is now taking plavix and coumadin and his knee is swelling every day and he wants to know if taking both blood thinners will slow the healing process. Should he discontinue taking plavix and only take coumadin for the blood clot? what is your suggestion. He was told by his surgery that there is blood around his knee. Again is this due to the blood thinners?

Answered by Dr. Hardik Sanghvi (54 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Discontinuation of blood thinner increase the risk of clotting.

Detailed Answer:
Hi, dear
I have gone through your question. I can understand your concern.
Your husband has stent and high risk of clotting. Moreover post operativd period itself is a risk period for clotting. So blood thinner is necessary. However its always a dilemma that blood thinner should be taken or not. Only few studies are there and there is no exact guidelines.

But clopidogrel does not show high risk of bleeding or hematoma after knee replacement surgery.
Swelling in knee and hematoma are common after knee replacement surgery. Its not due to blood thinner. Discontinuation can leads to life threatening events.

So in my opinion you should continue both drugs according to your doctor's advice.
Regular monitoring of PT and INR should be done.

Hope I have answered your question, if you have doubt then I will be happy to answer. Thanks for using health care magic. Wish you a very good health.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Vinay Bhardwaj