Muscle relaxers are the best remedy for treating back or neck pain. Your doctor may prescribe you muscle relaxants, enough rest, and other strategies to relieve you of muscle pain. Muscle relaxants are drugs that have sedative effects on the body. However, instead of working directly on the muscles, these muscle relaxant creams and drugs target the nerves in the brain and spine. These help your muscles to relax more.
Good muscle relaxers are usually used for a few days before you being noticing their effects. Your prescription can go up to three weeks, depending on the severity of your neck or back pain. Thus, begs the question, do natural muscle relaxers make you tired?
How do muscle relaxers make you tired?
Muscle tiredness occurs when your muscles don’t have enough strength in them. As a result, your muscles may not move or contract easily as they usually do. Some chronic medical conditions may cause your muscles to wear out and cause fatigue. Moreover, in some cases, an infection can cause your muscles to falter.
Muscle relaxers typically work on your nervous system instead of the muscles themselves. It is, therefore, only common for you to feel tired when using these drugs. Either way, no matter the type of muscle relaxers that you use, you will experience a few side effects. However, there are cases where a patient may experience potentially adverse side effects like liver damage.
Side Effects of Muscle Relaxers
Prepare yourself for experiencing side effects when taking muscle relaxers. Most of its effects are mild, with few cases where you may experience severe side effects like breathing problems, fainting, confusion, blurred vision, constipation, nausea, and urinary difficulties. Notify your doctor in case you suffer any of these major effects of using the drug.
Other common side effects caused by muscle relaxers include:
• Drowsiness, tiredness, sedation effects
• Dizziness
• Dry mouth
• Fatigue or weakness
• Depression
• Decreased blood pressure
To minimize risk, you should inform your doctor of any history of liver disease, seizures, and any other medical conditions that may complicate things.
Best Time to Take Muscle Relaxer
Many patients who use muscle relaxers don’t generally know when is the best time to use the drug. You must know when to take a muscle relaxer to avoid inconveniencing others. Supposing you use a muscle relaxer round the clock, you should take it in the evening when you have little distractions and can relax more.
Some muscle relaxers cause more sleepiness and drowsiness than others. It doesn’t hurt to prepare yourself for that and any other side effects that come with using the drug. It is not recommended that you use the drug when driving or handling other machines.
That is why early evenings are the best times to take muscle relaxers. The drowsiness distracts you from the pain and lets you get some needed rest.
How to cope with tiredness
Treatment of recurring muscle fatigue and tiredness depends on its underlying causes and its accompanying symptoms. The moment you experience muscle fatigue, especially when it’s unrelated to exercise, then it is advisable that you call your doctor.
In most cases, your muscle tiredness improves with rest and recovery. You should also stay hydrated and maintain a healthy diet to significantly improve your recovery time and protect against muscle weakness and fatigue.
Besides using muscle relaxers, other treatments for muscle tiredness include:
• Being mobile
• Drinking less alcohol
• Cutting out caffeine
• Getting enough sleep
• Therapy beats fatigue
• Lose weight to gain energy
• Reduce stress
• Eat often
Other causes of muscle tiredness may require medical attention. Ensure, therefore, that you visit your doctor and get an accurate diagnosis of your medical condition. Your doctor can then use the findings to prescribe an antidepressant or anti-inflammatory medications.
Bottom Line
While muscle relaxers are an excellent way of controlling and managing your back and neck pain, you must note that it is only one part of the process. To prevent muscle pain from recurring, you should also exercise physical and mental therapy and other strategies that may be needed.