What is Trazodone?
Trazodone is an antidepressant that regulates serotonin production and reuptake. By increasing the concentration of usable serotonin, this medication elevates mood, counteracts pain and restores normal sleep patterns. This medicine mitigates the signs and symptoms of both depression and anxiety, in most cases.
How It Treats Fibromyalgia
According to researchers, trazodone enhances the sleep quality, improves cognitive lucidity and functioning, and diminishes the symptoms of tension and depression. Obviously, researchers have also sparked major concerns about potential negative effects.
Studies
According to a number of controlled, clinical studies, Trazodone turned out to be just like effective as other antidepressants available on the market. Obviously, these studies have also revealed a number of alarming side effects, together with a heart condition that’ll be discussed.
Side Effects
This medication has got the unmatched ability to treat both constipation and glaucoma. Unlike many medications, it doesn’t induce anticholinergic reactions, hence its usefulness in treating these conditions. Trazodone is known to produce sedative effects, which could markedly reduce symptoms of agitation, anxiety and lack of sleep. Obviously, fibromyalgia sufferers who experience chronic fatigue and lethargy are greatly inconvenienced by these sedative effects.
Additional confirmed side-effect is that of cardiac arrhythmias. This has been felt by patients with and without preexisting heart disease.
Another seldom observed, but, serious side effect is known as priapism, in which the male penis doesn’t recede from its erect state for a period of a minimum of 4 hours. Although this is an uncommon condition, it does signal concern among men in the fibromyalgia community. The initial few months of treatment for this condition generally present the highest risk for this side-effect.
Precautions
Given along side it effects of this medication, precautionary measures ought to be taken by patients and doctors. If your patient is highly responsive to trazodone, then a smaller dosage may be sufficient in this instance.
As for minors combining trazodone with other antidepressants, doctors and parents should heed the indicators presented by researchers-namely suicidal tendencies among youth. In terms suicidal thoughts, precautionary measures and early intervention are crucial. Both suicidally depressed minors and adults should consume this medication in small doses for safety purposes. Many antidepressants have been recognized to evoke an indifferent state of mind, and for that reason, increase the prospect of suicide. Another alarming side effect of this medicine is the rare incidence of seizures.
With regard to overdoses, Trazodone is safer than some antidepressants available on the market. Furthermore, people rarely succumb to overdose about this med, as trazodone toxicity levels are mild at most. But in rare cases, when trazodone is consumed excessively, it spikes toxicity levels in the bloodstream and lowers blood pressure level. In one of the worst installments of trazodone overdose ever reported, a patient developed blockages within the atrioventricular region of the heart, combined with the failure of several organ systems.
Trazodone interacts with a liver enzyme referred to as CYP3A4. This specific enzyme accounts for the metabolic processes that activate trazodone. Essentially, if this enzyme is impeded in some way, concentrations of trazodone increase drastically in the blood stream. Specific foods, herbs and medicines are responsible for suppressing the effects of CYP3A4, which may be dangerous. One of these foods happens to be grapefruit, but only in large quantities.
How Does Trazadone Interact with Other Medications?
Patients are encouraged to never combine Trazodone with other medications. Trazodone may increase the potency of alcohol, depressants, and barbiturates within the bloodstream in some instances. For this reason, it may induce fatigue and disorganized thinking. Generally, patients who ingest trazodone along with other medications spike their digoxin and phenytoin levels.
In relation to trazodone and it is effect on anesthetics, more research ought to be conducted in this subject. Additionally, more research ought to be pursued within the studies of trazodone and it is relative impact on monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
Is Trazadone your best option?
While Trazodone confers its share of benefits, it presents a few perilous risk factors, too. Patients should thoroughly acquaint themselves with both risks and benefits before taking medicines.
If trazodone turns out to be ill-suited for any patient, another brand of antidepressant may be the solution. Luckily, patients can choose one of many routes to recovery and could perfectly expand their treatment options when they choose to.
As stated, fibromyalgia heightens the risk of developing tachycardia, arrhythmia, and severe fatigue oftentimes. In select incidences, this med has intensified preexisting suicidal tendencies in patients. If you have a history of suicidal thought patterns or tendencies, consult with your doctor to go over alternative healthcare options. Additional treatments may include the use of anticonvulsants, sleep aids, muscle relaxers, and steroid injections.
Many patients have either supplemented or replaced traditional therapies with homeopathic remedies. Physical therapy happens to be probably the most desired treatments methods, as it aids mobility and flexibility.
Furthermore, massage therapy can remove energy blockages, promote qi flow, smooth trigger points, and lower muscle tension and pain. Shiatsu massage, deep tissue massage, and trigger point massage therapy are widely acclaimed in the fibromyalgia community. Shiatsu massage is particularly effective since it interacts directly with nerve pathways within the nervous system.
When trazodone presents insurmountable risks to a patient’s health, acupuncture and biofeedback prove to be viable means of treatment. In terms of homeopathic medicine, acupuncture and biofeedback are remedial causes of recovery and pain alleviation. Biofeedback enables the mind to achieve a particular degree of mastery over bodily processes, including pain. Furthermore, acupuncture is considered to change the way the nervous system perceives and expresses pain.
Fibromyalgia people are often advised to curtail their diets, in terms of excluding sugar, unhealthy foods, trans fats, caffeine, MSG, and nightshade plants. Sugar and caffeine are one of the most aggravating stimulants for a fibromyalgia sufferer. Essentially, a raw food diet may be the only viable dietary option there’s for such patients. Not to mention, aerobic fitness exercise has proven to become highly effective for patients who require pain therapy.
