04 February 2005

Stopping Aspirin Not A Good Idea

If your physician has advised you to take aspirin daily for your stroke and you decide one day to just stop taking it, you might be tripling your risk of having another stroke.

Stopping Aspirin Could Triple Stroke Risk

If stroke survivors stop taking daily aspirin, they have triple the risk of suffering another stroke within just one month, according to a new study.

The study was presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in New Orleans.

For their findings, Swiss researchers looked at 309 patients who had a stroke or a transient ischemic attack (TIA) "mini-stroke" and were on long-term aspirin therapy for secondary prevention of heart attack and stroke. The team also evaluated a similar control group who had a stroke or TIA more than six months before and were also on long-term aspirin therapy.

They found 13 patients in the stroke group had ceased aspirin therapy four weeks before their stroke, compared with only four patients in the control group.

Seventy-seven percent of the ischemic strokes related to aspirin discontinuation occurred in the first eight days after aspirin was stopped. The remainder occurred between day nine and 30.

[Health Talk, Canada]

The best advise is still to consult with your doctor. With aspirin as a clot inhibitor, you should also take into consideration if you had a past history of gastric ulcers or gastric bleeding because of ulcers. In this case, an antacid or better, a proton-pump inhibitor should be added along with aspirin intake.

Consult your doctor what is the best regimen for your condition.

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