Is Eliquis a Blood Thinner? Advantages & Disadvantages

Eliquis (generic apixaban) is an anticoagulant or blood thinner medication that delays the clotting of blood. It is approved by the US FDA in 2014 to treat deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism and prevent their recurrence. It is also used to reduce the risk of blood clots and stroke in people who have atrial fibrillation.

What are blood thinners?

Blood thinners are prescription medications that prevent the formation of blood clots. It is also helpful in preventing existing clots from getting larger. Blood clots are dangerous; they usually form in the arteries, veins, and heart that can lead to blockages, heart attack, and stroke. There are two types of blood thinner medications: anticoagulant and antiplatelet. Eliquis belong to the anticoagulant type, specifically direct oral anticoagulant class, or DOAC.

Since mid-1950s, warfarin has been the mainstay of anticoagulant therapies. It belongs to the class of vitamin K antagonists (VKA) that blocks the circulation of clotting factors by competing with vitamin K. Clotting factors are proteins that are essential in the blood clotting process. They are created in the liver with the help of vitamin K—commonly found in cauliflower, cabbage, and other green leafy vegetables.

While vitamin K antagonists are proven to be quite effective in preventing stroke, it has numerous drawbacks. Patients treated with warfarin and other coumarin derivatives require frequent lab monitoring and dose adjustments. Because of the complex management necessary for VKAs, the pharmaceutical industry has focused on developing oral anticoagulants that could provide predictable therapeutic effects with fewer dietary and drug interactions, and without the need for constant dose adjustment and routine lab monitoring. Such medications are now available in the form of direct oral anticoagulants, also referred to as novel oral anticoagulants (NOAC) or non-vitamin K antagonists.

How Eliquis works

Anticoagulants are called blood thinners, but they don’t actually thin your blood. These drugs prevent blood clotting by decreasing the blood’s ability to clot. The difference between anticoagulants and antiplatelets, like aspirin or clopidogrel, is that antiplatelets blocks the release of thromboxane—a chemical that signals other platelets to come together and form a clot. Platelets release thromboxane when you get a scratch or cut. Without thromboxane, no clot will form, and your wound will continue to bleed.

Instead of competing with Vitamin K, DOACs directly target the blood’s clotting factors (factors IIa and Xa). Apixaban or Eliquis works by binding to factor Xa, which is involved in the formation of clotting components fibrin and thrombin. By blocking the action of factor Xa, the blood will be less likely to form a clot.

In the ARISTOTLE (Apixaban for Reduction in Stroke and Other Thromboembolic Events in Atrial Fibrillation) trial, researchers have concluded that apixaban was superior to warfarin for preventing systemic embolism and stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation. Moreover, a lower mortality rate was observed among participants in the apixaban group over those who took warfarin. Another advantage of apixaban is its reversible inhibitory effect on factor Xa. To reverse or minimize the effects of apixaban, activated charcoal is administered if ingestion is within 2 hours. Another agent that can be used for its reversal is four-factor prothrombin complex concentrate (4F-PCC), which is also approved for warfarin reversal.

In 2015, the FDA approved flibanserin (Addyi), also known as “female Viagra,” for marketing after two previously failed attempts. Based on the theory that low libido in women, which is dubbed hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), is a result of an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain, flibanserin works by manipulating a variety of serotonin receptors, with some manipulated by excitation, while others are manipulated via inhibition. According to the prescribing information from Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the “mechanism of action in the treatment of premenopausal women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder is not known.”
How does flibanserin (Addyi) work?
Yes, this is true. But this is true for a lot of medications. Almost one in five medications lack a well-defined mechanism of action. However, flibanserin does not work anything like sildenafil (Viagra), (vardenafil) Levitra, and tadalafil (Cialis) do, which is by causing increased bl ...

The Right Lower Quadrant
The abdomen can be separated into four quadrants:
LUQ (left upper quadrant)
LLQ (left lower quadrant)
RLQ (right lower quadrant)
RUQ (right upper quadrant)
The right lower quadrant
The right lower quadrant (RLQ) contains the following:
Right ureter
Right ovary
Right fallopian tube
Appendix
Small intestines
Ascending large colon
Ureter
The paired ureters (one in the LLQ and one in the RLQ) drain collected urine from their respective kidneys and travel under the floor of the abdomen to the pelvis, where they drain into the bladder. Drain is not the right word, because they exhibit undulating musculature that “milks” the urine down the line, which is known as peristalsis, and spits urine into the bladder every few moments.
Like all structures covered with the lining of the abdomen (peritoneum), this lining is very sensitive to distension, be it from a bubble distending a baby’s colon in ...

Hey, here’s a great idea… make it possible for people to get Viagra over the counter! Over-the-counter (OTC) sales would help so many men who are too embarrassed to discuss ED with their doctors.
Viagra, of course, is the “little blue pill” that treats erectile dysfunction (ED). Derived from a research study for a blood pressure medication, it wasn’t good enough to become a standalone hypertension drug, but it did produce the humorous anecdote about so many of the men participating in the study snickering about all the erections they were having. And the rest, as they say, is history. It wasn’t long before other ED drugs hit the market to cash in on the lucrative market, filling the vacuum created by flaccidity. Vardenafil (Levitra) and tadalafil (Cialis) soon joined the ranks of options, tweaking the properties and earning patents in their own right.
With Pfizer’s own patent on sildenafil (generic for Viagra) set to run out in ...