Ischemic Heart Disease
The starving heart — nitrates and antianginals for angina, and the drugs of a heart attack.
Angina & Nitrates: Easing the Starving Heart
A tiny tablet placed under the tongue can stop a crushing chest pain in ninety seconds — the same nitroglycerin once used to make dynamite. Angina is a heart starved of oxygen, and every drug that treats it works on one simple sum: the balance between how much oxygen the heart DEMANDS and how much it's SUPPLIED. Tip that balance back and the pain melts away.
Acute Coronary Syndrome: The Drugs of a Heart Attack
'Time is muscle.' When a clot suddenly blocks a coronary artery, heart tissue starts dying by the minute — and a rapid, choreographed sequence of drugs, plus reopening the artery, is all that stands between the patient and a dead heart. Learn the handful of drugs given in those first crucial hours, and the lifelong 'discharge cocktail' that stops the next attack, and you've mastered the treatment of the world's biggest killer.
