Can Muscle Relaxers Help With Withdrawal From Tramadol?
Muscle relaxers help to reduce muscle spasm pain, but not without the risk of addiction. They are only available by prescription.
Overview of Muscle Relaxers
Muscle relaxers serve several purposes. Most notably, they help relieve pain related to acute or chronic muscle spasms. These drugs are widely prescribed by medical providers. Certain statistics show there were nearly 35 million prescriptions for particular muscle relaxers prescribed in 2017.
Understanding Muscle Relaxers
Muscle relaxers are medications prescribed by medical professionals to help reduce muscle tension and pain. Typically, muscle relaxant medications are used to temporarily relieve muscle strain related to an injury.
How do Muscle Relaxers Work?
Muscle relaxants are central nervous system depressants. They produce a sedative effect helping you to feel calm and relaxed. In some cases, their sedative properties can help induce sleep.
Potential for Misuse
Prescription muscle relaxers also prevent your nerves from sending pain signals from the body to the brain. In addition to relieving pain and causing sedation, some muscle relaxant drugs can produce euphoric effects on the user, making muscle relaxers a target for abuse and misuse.


Categories of Muscle Relaxers
The Most Common Muscle Relaxers
Several different muscle relaxant medications are used by medical providers to address various medical needs. When adding a muscle relaxer to your treatment plan, it is crucial to consider the side effects of muscle relaxers and whether an alternative treatment model might better suit your needs.
Additional Muscle Relaxer Pills
In addition to the top 5 prescribed muscle relaxer pills listed above, other commonly prescribed muscle relaxants include Carisoprodol (Soma), Chlorzoxazone (Lorzone), Dantrolene (Dantrium), Metaxalone, Orphenadrine, and various benzodiazepine drugs.
What Can Muscle Relaxers Help With?
Although muscle relaxants can help with certain long-term pain conditions, medicine for muscle spasms is generally prescribed for acute pain conditions. This is due to muscle relaxer side effects and the potentially addictive nature of these drugs. Muscle relaxers can help with:
Pain
Muscle relaxers also help with specific types of headaches, including tension headaches or migraines.5
Anxiety
Opioid Withdrawal
In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first muscle relaxant to reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms. Introducing this opioid withdrawal treatment option may help patients manage uncomfortable and unpleasant symptoms of tramadol withdrawal.
Side Effects and Risks of Muscle Relaxers
Common Side Effects
Mild side effects of muscle relaxants typically will subside as the drug wears off or after use stops. Common, mild side effects of most muscle relaxers include:
Severe Side Effects
For some muscle relaxant users, side effects experienced, even when using the medication as prescribed, can be far more severe. Examples may include:
How Do Muscle Relaxers Work?
Muscle relaxant drugs work by encouraging your muscles to relax and become less tense and stiff. In turn, this helps to reduce pain and discomfort. Certain muscle relaxants accomplish this by impacting how the nerves communicate and send messages to the brain.
Others work directly on the muscle itself. By blocking the signals sent to the brain from the body, muscle relaxers help reduce pain and discomfort.
Practical Use
Muscle relaxants are typically not the first treatment option for muscle pain; however, if over-the-counter measures are ineffective, your doctor may prescribe a muscle relaxer. If you struggle to manage acute muscle spasm pain or discomfort related to a chronic medical condition, these drugs may be a practical addition to a treatment plan.


Risk for Dependence and Addiction
It is important to remember that muscle relaxers have several potential side effects, including the risk of dependency and addiction. Certain muscle relaxers are more addictive than others due to the side effects produced by their use.
Minimizing Risk
Because of the risk for dependence and addiction, most courses of treatment involving muscle relaxant drugs last no longer than two or three weeks to minimize the risk of experiencing withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking the medication. The risk of addiction is why your provider may turn to other treatment options before prescribing a muscle relaxant to manage muscle spasms and pain.
Reach Out to San Diego Detox
If you had a painful condition that required a muscle relaxant and you developed an addiction to the drug as part of treatment, know that it is possible to overcome addiction.
With detox help and therapeutic support from our professional treatment team, you can put the challenges of muscle relaxant addiction in the past. Talk with your doctor at San Diego Detox to learn more about how our programs can help.
Learn More About San Diego Detox
Our team is standing by to discuss your situation and options. Your call is fully confidential, and no obligation is required.
Resources
- https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/carisoprodol/carisoprodol.pdf
- https://www.ncpoisoncontrol.org/types-of-poisons/prescription-medicines/muscle-relaxers
- https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/spasticity
- https://clincalc.com/DrugStats/TC/MuscleRelaxants
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12696998/
- https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/benzo.pdf
- https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/cyclobenzaprine-oral-route/side-effects/drg-20063236