She is 72 years old, of average height and weight who has a past medical history of coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation and osteoarthritis. She has refused to take warfarin in the past because her daughter lives abroad and she did not want the monitoring required with warfarin to interfere with her ability to visit her daughter.
Her current prescribed medicines are:
Aspirin dispersible 75mg daily Amiodarone 200mg daily Atorvastatin 40mg at night Diclofenac 50mg three times daily when required
She does not take any over the counter or herbal medicines. I was considering starting her on dabigatran and was wondering if you could advise me if this would be suitable for her and what dose I should prescribe. I know there have been some concerns about its use in renal impairment so have also done some recent blood tests which show a creatinine of 119.