cholesterol lowering medications called a statins, seem to lower the risk of a 2nd stroke. It might be taken even if LDL or bad cholesterol, is already lower than 100 mg/dL and there are no other signs of narrowed blood vessels.
Antiplatelet drugs, statins and antihypertensive drugs ,are the mainstay for secondary stroke prevention. If dual antiplatelet therapy is used after a stroke, clinicians should ensure patients return to single drug therapy three weeks later. Patients with atrial fibrillation should be anticoagulated.
Supplements like 500mg niacin and 1000mg vitamin c along with vitamin b complex and turmeric extract has been shown to reduce carotid plaque size and restore normal blood flow. But niacin should be taken only for short term, like 50 days. Then take a gap for a month or two and restart it with lower dose like 100mg. Also reduce your carb intake and fat intake in your diet. Try to separate both from a single meal. And yes, statins can also be incorporated into daily life.
No single remedy for the secondary prevention of stroke!
After a stroke, evaluation and intensification of control of the underlying risk factors e.g. diabetes, hypertension, lipid control, smoking cessation, with the addition of an antiplatelet, and rate control as well as anticoagulation in patients with atrial fibrillation may help to reduce the incidence of subsequent stroke.
The chief risk factors for recurrent stroke are cigarette smoking, hypertension, dyslipidemia (either high LDL-c, low HDL-c, or some combination of the two), and diabetes. Fix the risk factors and in most cases, Bob's your uncle. I don't think that most physicians look for hypercoagulability risk factors, but if there are no obvious risk factors, one could look up thrombophilia risk factors.
If your patient has no sign of narrowed vessels think of a thromboembolic origin. A thrombus can originate in the heart as in endocarditis or come from the veins through a patent atrial septum a.s.o.
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