And so, following the directives of Western Medicine, our heroine discontinued the antihistamines on Monday in an attempt to determine whether the Full-Body Itch of a month ago would return without them. And too, to see if taking them out of the equation would reduce the amount of Coumadin required to reach the Holy Grail Therapeutic INR of 2.5. It’s taken six weeks and a whopping 15mg per day dose to get there while taking Zyrtec. … but it sure fixed the Full-Body Itch.

With some trepidation (but no itching so far), our heroine reported early this afternoon for the requsite fingerstick. And, presto! Less than 48 hours after dropping the Zyrtec, the INR had popped from 2.5 to 3.9. While this is a very positive development, and proves that the Zyrtec was interfering with the Coumadin absorption, 3.9 is NOT where this particular number is s’posed to be (this is way over-anticoagulated and must be corrected before Bad Things happen).

The fix is twofold: We adjust the Coumadin. (downwards. duh.) But that takes a couple of days to impact the actual clotting mechanisms. So, off to the grocery store for the fast fix: a great big spinach salad. Yum. Vitamin K.

And then we repeat the whole thing on Friday. What fun!