Enalapril is a medicine used to reduce high blood pressure and to prevent or treat heart failure.
If you have high blood pressure, taking enalapril will help prevent a future heart attack or stroke.
Enalapril lowers your blood pressure and makes it easier for your heart to pump blood around your body.
This medicine is only available on prescription. It comes as tablets.
Enalapril is also available combined with another blood pressure medicine called hydrocholorothiazide (Innozide).
Key facts
- Enalapril starts to reduce your high blood pressure within a few hours, but it may take a few weeks to fully take effect. If you're taking enalapril for heart failure, it may take weeks, even months, before you feel better.
- Your first dose of enalapril may make you feel dizzy, so it's best to take it at bedtime. After the first dose, if you do not feel dizzy, you can take enalapril at any time of day. Try to take it at the same time every day.
- Some people get a dry, tickly cough with enalapril.
- If you get severe diarrhoea or vomiting from a stomach bug or illness, tell your doctor. You may need to stop taking enalapril for a while until you feel better.
- Drinking alcohol with enalapril can make you feel dizzy or light-headed.