Question: Hello,

My father, a diabetic from last 10 years, suffered from a heart attack 2 months back and had an angioplasty done with 2 stents implanted.

He has been prescribed medicines such as Aspirin (Ecosprin-AV 150 ) and Clopidogrel (clopilet 75) among others. Both these medicines are being taken once a day.

After taking these medicines for 2 months, he suffered from extreme gastrointestinal bleeding and had to be hospitalized under ICU care and was also administered 6 bottles of blood. Now he is fine, but it is known that the main undesirable side effects of aspirin are gastrointestinal bleeding, stomach bleeding, etc especially in higher doses.

My doctor tells me that it is necessary to continue with the aspirin for the sake of stents implanted. I am afraid that continuing with this medicine may cause another bout of stomach/gasto-intestinal bleeding in future. If it is extreme necessary to take these medicines, can a lower dose reduce the risk of bleeding? His average platelet count is in the range of 150,000.

What should be done? I know any step has to be taken with a proper medical/doctor advice. I am looking to gain further information which may help me sit with the doctor again and work upon a solution for this.

Thank you very much, Dr Anantharamakrishnan.

My family doctor who is also a general physician since last 50 years and knows complete medical history of my father has recommended the following:

- Continue with Clopidogrel (clopilet 75).
- Reduce the dosage of Ecosprin-AV 150 (Aspirin) from 150 to 75 with immediate effect. He has recommended this after consultation with the operating cardiologist surgeon.
- Further he also recommends to completely stop Ecosprin-AV 75 (Aspirin) after 15 days (It will be 3 months from the date of angioplasty). He says that the main function of Ecosprin-AV 150 (Aspirin) is anti-platelet and since the platelet count of my father is at lower end of 150,000 and it has been like that since as long as we recollect from his reports, it should be fine.

So his recommendation is that in case of my father, we would do well with only Clopidogrel (clopilet 75).

My questions here are:

a) Will be be ok to reduce to Ecosprin-AV 75 with immediate effect? Both he and the operating cardiologist surgeon agree to reducing the dosage from 150 to 75.

b) Since my father's platelet count is in the range of 150,000, does it make sense to stop Ecosprin-AV 75 after 15 days from now and continue only with clopilet 75. It will be 3 months from the date of angioplasty, 15 days from today.

c) If you recommend not to stop Ecosprin-AV 75, do you think 75 is a low dosage and will prevent or reduce the risk of XXXXXXX GI bleeding again? Or we could reduce to a 50 or 25 dosage.

Thanks once again.

Thank you sir for your response.

I guess then it makes sense to continue with aspirin 75mg for atleast a year. Do you think since the dosage of aspirin has been reduced from 150mg to 75mg, it will significantly reduce the risk of XXXXXXX GI bleeding?