Zanaflex
 

Opinions? This is what my doc gave me yesterday for my muscle spasms. Hopefully it works. starting with 2 mg's at bedtime for two days, then 4 mg's at betime for 4 days...he likes to "ramp me up" so it will take about 2 weeks for me to reach the dose he wants me at.

Has anyone had any weird problems or anything with this med? Has it worked/not worked for you?

Dear Lisa -

Zanaflex and Balofen are, based upon what my neurologist has told me, the two best medicines for dealing with CNS induced cramping, as opposed to local muscle cramps, for which things like Flexeril work very well.

I've been on both Zanaflex and Baclofen. At first, even 2 mg. of Zanaflex made me extremely tired, to the point that I could only take it at night. That went away after a year or so, and I eventually found myself taking 24 mg./day.

Unfortunately, Zanaflex sort of stopped working, or at the least became less effective at the worst times. So, over the last few months, we've added Baclofen back into the system. I had taken it years ago while I was still working but stopped right away when I realized it was giving me some mild amnesia, such as forgetting computer access codes. Now that I am no longer practicing law, that's less of a concern, and I've gone back on the Baclofen whixh I take up to 30 mg./day along with a somewhat reduced dose (16 mg./day) of Zanaflex.

I hope this is helpful.

Mike

Lisa -
I have RSD and TOS and took Zanaflex for well over a year and still take it
as needed. I found this to be a wonderful medication. It helped big time with spasms and in fact I used to take it before physical therapy and found that the
therapists could get allot more accomplished with me when I took it.

I also had more and less painful movement when I took it.
If it works for you you might want to consider a catapress patch. I have found that very helpful. Although thats a Blood pressure med it work similarly and has given me relief.

The big drawback of Zanaflex is that it can make you extremely sleepy.
I could count on going right to sleep for an hour whenever I took it. After that I was alright but I always had to account for being incapacitated for an hour.
Zanaflex and Tizanidine are the same medication.
I hope you find relief with it.

PS. I have taken many meds in search of relief that had weird and nasty side effects.
In comparison this one was very tolerable.

Baclofen was a horror for me. It made my hand tremble. Dancing hand at the dinner table--hand had a life of its own--quite a site---

I guess that has to be classified as one of the rarer side effects!

Maybe this is something that will be helpful to me too? I am muslce spasms and my doctor won't put me on anything. So, I am changing doctors. My left arm is contracting and the pain is preety extreme. I think I need med changes. But he just reprograms my spinal cord stimulator. Which doesn't do anything. I have sleeping 2 hours again and I kow that doesn't help the pain. I found a new docot I see this week but I wish it was today. But, when you have pain like this you really learn too cope with things because you have too. Also, my husband is so wonderful about all of this. But, I did get sidetracked so. I will bring this up with my new doctor.

Thnaks, Annick03