The name of your medicine is APO-Candesartan. It contains the active ingredient candesartan
cilexetil.
high blood pressure, also called hypertension.
heart failure - increase survival, reduce hospitalisation and improve symptoms. It
is used in combination with other medicines to treat your condition.
Ask your doctor if you have any questions about why this medicine has been prescribed
for you.
Your doctor may have prescribed this medicine for another reason.
This medicine is available only with a doctor's prescription.
There is no evidence that this medicine is addictive.
How it works
Candesartan is a type of medicine called an angiotensin II receptor inhibitor (or
antagonist).
Hypertension:
All people have blood pressure. This pressure helps to push blood all around your
body. Your blood pressure changes during the day, depending on how busy you are or
how you are feeling.
You have hypertension (high blood pressure) when your blood pressure stays higher
than is needed, even when you are calm and relaxed.
Regular blood pressure checks are the only way of knowing that you have hypertension.
There are usually no symptoms of hypertension and you may feel fine. If hypertension
is not treated, serious health problems such as stroke or heart attack and heart or
kidney failure may occur.
Candesartan lowers blood pressure by dilating (expanding) small blood vessels from
the heart, letting the blood be pumped around the body more easily.
Heart Failure:
Heart failure means that the heart muscle cannot pump blood strongly enough to supply
all the blood needed throughout the body. Heart failure is not the same as heart attack
and does not mean that the heart stops working.
Heart failure may start off with no symptoms, but as the condition progresses, patients
may feel short of breath or may get tired easily after light physical activity such
as walking. Some patients may wake up short of breath at night. Fluid may collect
in different parts of the body, often first noticed as swollen ankles and feet.
Candesartan helps to treat heart failure and may improve your symptoms.
One of the ways candesartan helps heart failure is that it widens the blood vessels,
so that the heart does not have to pump as hard to move the blood around the body.
This also means that when you place extra demands on your heart, such as during exercise,
the heart may cope better so you may not get short of breath as easily.
When used to treat heart failure, candesartan is almost always used with other medicines
called diuretics or fluid tablets. These medicines help the kidney to get rid of excess
fluid from the body.
