Pulmonary Embolism – Foods to Avoid with Vitamin K

Since my wife recently had a Pulmonary Embolism we have to watch what foods she eats. Vitamin K is one thing she doesn’t want to get to much of as it will interact with her coumadin medication. We know to say away from green vegetables, but there are a lot of other foods high in vitamin K too.

We recently came across Ptinr.com, a great website that lets you put in any food and it’ll tell you if it’s high, medium or low in vitamin K. Did you know that Cheetos are high? Starbursts are low. Chocolate Milk is high. Chicken Nuggets are low. They also have a great, 10 page, print out of most foods and their vitamin K value that you can take with you.

Pintar’s Vitamin K Registry is by far the best resource we’ve found for looking up foods with vitamin K.

Posted Saturday, September 30th, 2006
Categories: Food, General, Personal
Tags: coumadin, pulmonary-embolism, vitamin-k

9 Responses to “Pulmonary Embolism – Foods to Avoid with Vitamin K”

Helen MacMillan says:

12/10/2006 at 8:02 am

Thank you so much-I would not have found it by myself.

Grandma aka Bonnie says:

3/5/2007 at 3:24 pm

With my history of PE, I really appreciate the link to Pentar’s Vitamin K registry. There are many foods I’ve had which I had no idea caused elevation in Vit K levels.

Since March is DVT (pulmonary embolism) Awareness month, I blogged about it yesterday. Grandpa and I are newbie bloggers and would sure appreciate you dropping by to read by DVT Awareness post on my blog yesterday and leaving a comment? You can find us at Grandparents Cyber Corner.

Thanks again for the valuable Vitamin K registry link. I wish you all the best.

Bonnie/Grandma

Zoila says:

11/27/2007 at 6:07 am

Thanks, thanks, thanks. I was having a lot of problems to identify food high in vitamin K and my blood tests were going lower every week. Now I can Identify what to eat and still maintain my levels. People who have survived PE are very lucky to be alive. Thanks for helping me stay that way for my family.

Ann says:

7/9/2008 at 11:52 am

Thank you so much for the information on the ptinr.com website. I’m new to all of this and it gives me more information and guidance than any other sites I’ve found.

Kathy Sydow says:

9/25/2008 at 1:47 pm

Just for information. Nice list. Would be good to include the amount per serving. This can vary from 1/4 c – 1 cup and the same with fluid oz. I have seen the amounts on other sites but not a total list like you have.

Daryl Saari says:

10/6/2008 at 9:24 pm

I found this info very useful, and will tell my grandmother about this useful information i have found for her. Thank you!

Henry says:

11/8/2008 at 11:07 am

Very informative in ref to foods to avoid but no-one mentions drinks to avoid! How about, NA BEER, MILK, SODAS, REG TEA (NOT GREEN)??

Thomas says:

11/9/2008 at 9:38 pm

We never really thought about beverages. Good question though.

Tim says:

9/7/2009 at 7:53 am

Hi there.

I am recovering from pulmonary emboli.

The best advice that I was given whilst in hospital was from the phlebotomist and that was:

“make sure you control the warfarin (coumadin), don’t let the warfarin (coumadin) control you.”

Thinking about this logically it makes a whole lot of sense. If you just continue you normal diet and stick to a regular diet, we are all creatures of habit after all, then the amount of warfarin required to get your INR to the required level will be whatever it is. If you go out of your way to avoid all the food items that contain vitamin K not only are you putting yourself at risk of a deficiency in any number of other vitamins that are contained in these foods you are also artificially lowering your normal intake which will just have the effect of reducing the amount of warfarin required to hit INR target.

If you are eating minimal vitamin K and you try a different food that is, unknown to you, high in vitamin K or one that is known to you but you just want it then you can easily increase your daily vitamin K intake by 100% – 200% or more for that day which will have a drastic effect on your INR. On the other hand if you eat your normal amount of Vitamin K and try the new food this is more likely to only effect the overall daily intake by say 10% – 20% and have much less an effect.

So there is likely to be a correlation between wildly fluctuating INR levels and actively reducing Vitamin K in your diet.

So I am doing exactly what the doctor ordered and eating a normal balanced diet added consistent to it eating all the things that I like. My INR level has been stable from the start of the treatment.

Does this make sense to others?

Tim