If you are recently diagnosed with a heart problem, your cardiologist must have prescribed you some heart medications. There are many conditions that cardiac medicines treat. It can be high blood pressure, cholesterol, angina, heart attack, stroke, or heart arrhythmias. As you start these medications, you must know the functions of the medicines your doctor has prescribed.

We have listed down all the major classes of cardiac medications, their uses, and potential side effects. Remember, your cardiologist understands your health better. You must follow all the instructions and precautions.

Here are the seven most common heart medications.

• Statins not only lower cholesterol but also reduce inflammation in the blood vessels.
• Beta-blockers are sometimes used off-label to treat anxiety due to their calming effect on the heart.
• ACE inhibitors can cause a persistent dry cough in some patients.
• ARBs, unlike ACE inhibitors, rarely cause the side effect of a dry cough.
• Diuretics are often referred to as “water pills” because they help the body get rid of excess fluid.
• Calcium channel blockers are also used to treat certain types of migraines.
• Antiplatelet agents like aspirin are often recommended in low doses to prevent heart attacks.

Anticoagulants are often known as blood thinners, but they work differently. They break the clot-formation process to prevent blood from coagulating. These medicines also help prevent the existing clots from getting bigger.

People who have had heart attacks in the past or have artificial mechanical valves usually take them. The following are the most common drug examples of anticoagulants.

Apixaban (Eliquis): It prevents the formation of blood clots, especially after knee or hip replacement surgery. It is prescribed for conditions such as deep vein thrombosis and atrial fibrillation.

Dabigatran (Pradaxa): Dabigatran treats blood clots formed in pulmonary embolism and vein thrombosis. This drug is also used to prevent heart strokes.

Enoxaparin (Lovenox): This is available in the form of injections to prevent harmful blood clots from forming.

Heparin: This drug cures Blood clots formed by medical procedures. It can be used in combination with other medicines.

Rivaroxaban (Xarelto): It is used to treat blood clots and chances of stroke.

Warfarin (Coumadin): It is prescribed to patients with a history of heart attacks to prevent strokes and blood clots. Most doctors prescribe this medicine for heart attack prevention.

These are prescribed to patients at high risk of blood clotting or stroke.

These medicines help treat blood clotting by preventing blood platelets from combining. The widely used antiplatelet drug is aspirin. Aspirin has antiplatelet and anti-clotting properties that help keep the arteries open.

Aspirin: It relieves fever and mild to moderate pain. It is also used to keep the blood from thickening. It keeps the platelets from combining.

Clopidogrel (Plavix): Clopidogrel prevents the platelets from sticking together to form a blood clot. It can be used in combination with aspirin on a doctor’s prescription.

These drugs control plaque accumulation and are prescribed for patients with cardiovascular problems, chest pain, stroke risk, TIA (transient ischemic attacks), or MI (myocardial infarction or heart attack).

You can feel dizziness, headache, bleeding, or bruising on your skin when you start the dose. But with time, these side effects disappear.

ACE inhibitors make the blood flow more efficient by expanding the blood vessels. By blocking the stress hormones, ACE inhibitors improve your heart health.

Lisinopril (Zestril): It is used for high blood pressure treatment. Patients with a history of Heart Attacks are prescribed this drug to increase their chances of survival and prevent heart failure.

Ramipril (Altace): It treats heart failure and hypertension. It decreases the chances of Heart Attacks and kidney problems.

Enalapril (Vasotec): This drug treats high blood pressure and heart failure.

Benazepril (Lotensin): It treats hypertension alone or in combination with other medicines. Benazepril can also treat kidney problems. 

These medicines are for those who have a problem with high blood pressure or a risk of heart failure.

ARBs work like ACE inhibitors. They are also referred to as sartans. They help expand the blood vessels to improve blood flow. And by reducing the heart’s workload, they make it function more efficiently.

Losartan (Cozaar): It helps with hypertension to decrease the chances of heart attacks. It is beneficial for patients with high blood pressure and heart enlargement.

Valsartan (Diovan): This medicine increases the survival chances after heart attacks. It can treat hypertension.

These medications help patients who are dealing with hypertension or heart failure.

Headache, dizziness, Edema, and respiratory symptoms are common side effects of ARBs.

Beta-blockers are prescribed to block the effects of stress hormones like adrenaline, so the heart’s pumping doesn’t get stressed. These medications also relax the blood vessels to ensure smooth blood flow.

Metoprolol (Lopressor): It prevents angina attacks and survival rates after heart attacks. It is used with other medicines to decrease the chances of heart failure.

Atenolol (Tenormin): This beta blocker is used for high blood pressure and chest pain due to heart diseases. Sometimes it is also prescribed to control irregular heartbeat.

Propranolol (Inderal): It decreases high blood pressure by decreasing the heart rate to make it easier for your heart to pump blood. Propranolol is also used to treat anxiety.

Carvedilol (Coreg): It prevents angina attacks, strokes, left ventricular dysfunction, and other heart diseases.

Doctors prescribed these drugs to treat Lower blood pressure, heart arrhythmias, Angina, and MI prevention.

In some patients, beta-blockers can cause headaches and dizziness. Some may experience dry mouth, skin, eyes, cold hands & feet, diarrhea, constipation, and sexual dysfunctionality for the time being.

Calcium blockers, also known as calcium agonists, basically block the movement of calcium in blood vessel cells and heart cells. This helps blood vessels to relax, prevents smaller vessels from narrowing and spasming, and reduces the oxygen requirement.

Amlodipine (Norvasc): This calcium blocker treats high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. It can cause dizziness.

Diltiazem (Cardizem): It treats high blood pressure. Moreover, it can improve chest pain due to angina attacks. Diltiazem is also used as a treatment for anal fissures.

Amiodarone (Pacerone): It prevents many types of cardiac dysrhythmias. It is prescribed to those patients whose symptoms have not improved with other medicines.

Verapamil (Verelan): It decreases the severity of angina pain and irregular heart rhythm.

Calcium blockers are prescribed to treat high blood pressure, angina, chest pain, and heart arrhythmias.

Calcium agonists can cause constipation, tachycardia, palpitations, dizziness, flushing, rash, and swelling in your legs and feet.

Cholesterol drugs, also known as statins, reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol or bad cholesterol in your blood. These medications can lower bad cholesterol levels by 20 to 60 percent. Moreover, statins also help lower triglyceride levels and reduce the production of bad cholesterol in the liver.

Atorvastatin (Lipitor): It treats abnormal lipid levels to decrease the chances of heart-related diseases. Mainly, it is prescribed in combination with dietary modification and exercise.

Simvastatin (Zocor): This medicine treats high triglyceride levels in the blood. It helps prevent blockage in the arteries, thus preventing heart attacks and other heart diseases.

Rosuvastatin (Crestor): It treats high cholesterol and decreases the chances of heart surgery. It is recommended to increase physical activity and take a heart-friendly diet for this medicine to work.

Pravastatin (Pravachol): This drug increases good cholesterol and decrease bad cholesterol to improve heart condition. It is generally prescribed to be taken at night because the human body makes most of its cholesterol at night.

Cholesterol drugs help reduce the LDL (bad) cholesterol level in the blood.

Some common side effects of statins are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, muscle soreness, stomach cramps, HA, and dizziness. In case of any extreme pain or discomfort, contact your doctor. 

It is advised not to use statins if you have severe liver disease. You cannot also take cholesterol drugs if you are already taking other cardiac medications like calcium blockers or warfarin. Moreover, never share your cardiac medications with anybody else, or take theirs. Most heart medicines are prescribed and can be good for one patient and dangerous for others.

In this article, we have explained some of the basic medications that are used for treating different heart conditions. Different categories of drugs are explained along with their complications and side effects for a better understanding. However, these medications can only be used after taking advice from your medical practitioner.