I have this friend who is 20 years old. He had a heart attack about three months ago. It was discovered that he had Prothrombin Gene Mutation. This basically means his blood is especially prone to clotting. He is currently on Coumadin. Now my friend was a fairly heavy user of marijuana (about 5 times a day) and nicotien (about 1.5 packs a day). Since his heart attack he has not touched either drug. He knows nicotien constricts blood vessels and will never smoke a cigarette again. But he was wondering about marijuana. Would that have any negative affect? Would ingesting (eating, in brownies etc.) be safe for him?
You REALLY should find some way to get an answer from a real M.D. on this. I’ve been on coumadin before for some post-surgical blood clotting (thankfully not anymore, which sounds like it may not be the case with your friend), and it’s really nothing to mess around with. It’s a drug for which is particularly hard to adjust the dosage, and many, many things can throw off your necessary dosage in a really drastic way: your activity level, what you eat and drink, what other meds you are taking, etc.
My necessary dosage varied from 1 mg/day to 10 mg/day, sometimes within a couple of days, and they were taking blood samples all the time (every couple of days for a while there, and every week at the least frequent). If the dosage is off, you can bruise at the drop of a hat, or in a worst-case scenario, bleed internally. I really, really recommend that your friend not screw around with this.
Marijuana increases your heart rate and blood pressure - not a good thing for someone w/ a condition like his.