It depends on your current levels, in the initial stages then people get tested very frequently until a steady INR is obtained. As long as there are no changes to medication (and that includes herbal remedies) then frequency of measurement can be dropped quite low.
Changes to diet can affect warfarin so any patient should be on the look out for effects of excessive dosage such as bruising, bleeding gums when brushing teeth and nosebleeds. Excessive warfarin levels can lead to risk of cerebral bleeding so its important to keep them under control.
Some individuals, with no or low risk factors may be able to come off warfarin after a period of time however with your weight, this would not be advisable.
The thing that would concern me is that should you go for too long between testing, the warfarin dose may be insufficient and you may have a further DVT or other embolic episode.
The costs of testing will be less than costs of rehospitilisation! They are talking about introducing home testing machines for patients but its still early days for them.
You do not mention how long its been since your last test but if it has been long enough that you are concerned about it, then I think its worth the sacrifice to have it done.
regards
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