{"id":6073,"date":"2014-06-02T06:31:20","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T10:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/?p=6073"},"modified":"2016-11-17T19:41:26","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T23:41:26","slug":"medications-for-pain-series-blood-pressure-medication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/6073\/medications-for-pain-series-blood-pressure-medication\/","title":{"rendered":"Medications for Pain Series:  <i>Blood Pressure Medication<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This article is one in a series on <strong>Medications for Pain.<\/strong> What are your choices?\u00a0How do various medications work?\u00a0Pros and cons? How about side effects?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Anti-Hypertensive Medication\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>are\u00a0drugs originally used to control high blood pressure. A common medication from this class that&#8217;s used for pain\u00a0is Clonidine.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/64\/205306168_1c38b659e8.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"207\" height=\"253\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Like muscle relaxants, anti-hypertensives <em>indirectly<\/em> decrease pain. They would be considered supplemental medications for pain, rather than primary ones.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Effect of Anti-Hypertensives:<br \/>\n<\/strong>These medications work by decreasing the activity of your\u00a0sympathetic nervous system. This is the fight or flight system in your body, the one that&#8217;s responsible for getting your body going &#8211;\u00a0raising your blood pressure and getting your heart beating faster.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Uses of Anti-Hypertensives:<\/strong><br \/>\nIn some pain disorders, it&#8217;s thought that an overactive sympathetic system may be partly responsible for symptoms. CRPS (RSD) and other neuropathic pain disorders are some examples. Using anti-hypertensives in pain isn&#8217;t FDA-approved, but there are\u00a0some studies supporting the use of these medications for pain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Side Effects:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a decrease in blood pressure (which is a\u00a0direct effect of the medication, but\u00a0is considered a side effect when the medication is\u00a0used for pain control, as that&#8217;s not the effect that&#8217;s necessarily desired)<\/li>\n<li>sedation<\/li>\n<li>dizziness or lightheadedness<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is one in a series on Medications for Pain. What are your choices?\u00a0How do various medications work?\u00a0Pros and cons? How about side effects? Anti-Hypertensive Medication\u00a0are\u00a0drugs originally used to control high blood pressure. A common medication from this class that&#8217;s used for pain\u00a0is Clonidine. Like muscle relaxants, anti-hypertensives indirectly decrease pain. They would be [&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-6073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6073","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=6073"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7800,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6073\/revisions\/7800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}