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Clot Busters

Once your heart attack is diagnosed, your treatment begins immediately -- possibly right in the ambulance or emergency department. The knowledge gained in the past years regarding acute coronary syndromes and what happens in the artery during a heart attack has helped guide medical treatment. The goals of medication therapy are to break up or prevent blood clots, prevent platelets from gathering and sticking to the plaque, stabilize the plaque, and prevent further ischemia.

These medications must be given as soon as possible (within one to two hours from the start of your heart attack) to decrease the amount of damage. The longer the delay in starting these drugs, the more damage that occurs and the less benefit they can provide.
Mediations for this purpose may include:

* Aspirin
* Heparin
* Thrombolytic therapy ("clot busters")
* Other antiplatelet drugs
* Any combination of the above

Other drugs, given during or after a heart attack lessen your heart's work, improve the functioning of the heart, widen or dilate your blood vessels, decrease your pain, and guard against any life-threatening heart rhythms. Your doctor will prescribe the appropriate medications for you.

Interventional procedures:

During or shortly after a heart attack, you may go to the cardiac catheterization laboratory to directly evaluate the status of your heart, arteries and the amount of heart damage. In some cases, procedures (such as angioplasty or stents) are used to open up your narrowed or blocked arteries. These procedures may be combined with thrombolytic therapy to open up the narrowed arteries, as well as to break up any clots that are blocking them.

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