{"id":6070,"date":"2014-05-27T06:26:15","date_gmt":"2014-05-27T10:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/?p=6070"},"modified":"2016-11-17T19:45:34","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T23:45:34","slug":"medications-for-pain-series-muscle-relaxants-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6070\/medications-for-pain-series-muscle-relaxants-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Medications for Pain Series:  <i>Muscle Relaxants<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This article is one in a series on <strong>Medications for Pain.\u00a0<\/strong>What are your choices? How do various medications work? Pros and cons? How about side effects?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Muscle Relaxants\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>are drugs which help muscles relax and prevent muscle spasms. Common medications include Zanaflex and Baclofen.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/massage-of-muscles.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3262\" title=\"massage of muscles\" src=\"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/massage-of-muscles-260x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"188\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Some medications such\u00a0anticonvulsants and antidepressants can <em>directly<\/em> reduce pain. Most muscle relaxants work <em>indirectly <\/em>on pain, although Baclofen may also have direct\u00a0pain-reducing effects. There are many categories of muscle relaxants, all working on different neurotransmitter systems in the body.\u00a0We\u00a0think of muscle relaxants as\u00a0supplemental medications for pain, rather than primary ones.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Uses of Muscle Relaxants:<br \/>\n<\/strong>Muscle relaxants are used\u00a0in conditions where these symptoms are a problem:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>muscle tension<\/li>\n<li>muscle spasm<\/li>\n<li>dystonia (severe, long-lasting spasm)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These symptoms can occur in pain disorders such as chronic back pain and CRPS.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Side Effects:<\/strong><br \/>\nSide effects include sedation and weakness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is one in a series on Medications for Pain.\u00a0What are your choices? How do various medications work? Pros and cons? How about side effects? Muscle Relaxants\u00a0are drugs which help muscles relax and prevent muscle spasms. Common medications include Zanaflex and Baclofen. Some medications such\u00a0anticonvulsants and antidepressants can directly reduce pain. Most muscle relaxants [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6070"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7801,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070\/revisions\/7801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}