Side Effects Of Calcium Channel Blockers

Calcium channel blockers are a type of medication utilized to treat individuals affected by numerous conditions, including chest pain, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, irregular heartbeats, Raynaud's disease, and other circulatory conditions. This type of medication inhibits calcium molecules from moving into the blood vessel walls and cells of the heart to decrease blood pressure. Calcium channel blockers help expand and widen an individual's blood vessels through their actions on the muscular cells that make up the arterial walls. Calcium channel blockers are also effective at reducing an individual's heart rate, which helps decrease blood pressure, control irregular heart rhythms, and alleviate angina. Some of the most common calcium channel blockers include diltiazem, isradipine, nifedipine, verapamil, amlodipine, felodipine, nicardipine, and nisoldipine.

Calcium channel blockers have proven to be useful in most individuals, but like any other medication, they may produce unwanted side effects. Get familiar with these now.

Heart Palpitations

In rare cases, an individual being treated with calcium channel blockers may experience uncomfortable and abnormal heart palpitations. In situations of anxiety, stress, or during exercise, heart palpitations can be a normal occurrence. Some patients describe heart palpitations as a feeling of being stressed out, pounding in the chest, or fluttering in the chest. Some individuals may experience pain with their heart palpitations. Calcium channel blockers are medications that work by stopping the entry of calcium into the blood vessel walls and cells of the heart to help relax a patient's heart muscle. This mechanism lowers blood pressure and helps correct a patient's irregular heartbeat. An individual may experience heart palpitations or become abnormally aware of their heart beating when the calcium channel blockers induce vascular and blood pressure changes.

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Drowsiness

Treatment with calcium channel blockers has been known to produce feelings of drowsiness in some patients. When an individual has high blood pressure and or an elevated heart rate, every system in the body is working at its peak, and all processes are moving faster than usual. Hormones that prompt the body to remove glucose from the blood and synthesize it into ATP or usable cellular energy are typically slightly elevated when the heart rate and blood pressure are high. When an affected individual takes calcium channel blockers, they experience an initial period of adjustment. The patient's cells experience a slow down in their processes and have to adjust to the new pace and metabolism of the body when it is under the influence of calcium channel blocking medication. This mechanism can cause an individual to feel sleepy, drowsy, or sluggish for several weeks upon beginning the medication. As the body adjusts to these changes, the side effect of drowsiness typically dissipates.

Keep reading to learn more about the side effects linked to calcium channel blockers now.