Muscle Relaxers

Skeletal muscle relaxants are used to relax certain muscles in your body and relieve the stiffness, pain, and discomfort caused by strains, sprains, or other injury to your muscles. However, these medicines do not take the place of rest, exercise or physical therapy, or other treatment that your doctor may recommend for your medical problem. Skeletal muscle relaxants act in the central nervous system (CNS) to produce their muscle relaxant effects. Their actions in the CNS may also produce some of their side effects.

In the United States these medications are available only with your doctor's prescription.

In deciding to use a medicine, the risks of taking the medicine must be weighed against the good it will do. This is a decision you and your doctor will make. For the skeletal muscle relaxants, the following should be considered:

• Allergies
• Pregnancy and breast feeding. Although skeletal muscle relaxants have not been shown to cause birth defects or other problems, studies on birth defects have not been done in pregnant women
• Children. Studies with the skeletal muscle relaxants have been done only in adult patients, and there is no specific information comparing use of these drugs in children with use in other age groups. However, carisoprodol (Soma) and chlorzoxazone (Flexeril) have been used in children
• Older adults. Many medicines have not been tested in older people
• Other medicines. When you are taking a skeletal muscle relaxant, it is especially important that your health care professional knows if you are taking any of the following: alcohol, central nervous system depressants, tricyclic antidepressants
• Other medical problems

Skeletal muscle relaxants may cause blurred vision or clumsiness or unsteadiness in some people. Muscle relaxers drugs may also cause some people to feel drowsy, lightheaded, dizzy, faint, or less alert than they are normally. Make sure you know how you react to this medication before you drive, use machines, or do anything else that could be dangerous if you are dizzy or are not alert, well-coordinated, and able to see well.

Muscle relaxants are not really a class of drugs, but rather a group of different medications that each has an overall sedative effect on the body.