Medicines - other

Cholesterol-lowering medicines
In recent years the use of medicines that lower cholesterol levels in the blood have been shown to improve survival in patients after a heart attack and these are now commonly prescribed.

• Some medicines (for example, bezafibrate and clofibrate) act on the liver and reduce both the levels of cholesterol and another type of fat called triglycerides.
  
  
• Another group of medicines called statins (for example, atorvastatin, pravastatin, rosuvastatin and simvastatin) decrease the activity of an enzyme which produces cholesterol in the liver and so reduce cholesterol levels.

Painkillers
The pain associated with a heart attack may be controlled by a slow intravenous injection of diamorphine or morphine.