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Suppose you are regular with feeling anxiety or other problems like high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, chest pain and other heart problems, you may know that Beta-Blockers can help you to treat these conditions.

You should know many more things you should know about beta blockers for anxiety, how it works, its side-effects, benefits, risks, and effectiveness. Let us start with defining Beta-Blockers.

 

What are Beta-Blockers?

 

Beta-Blockers belong to a class of drugs that helps your body to fight against many health-related problems such as:

 

●     Anxiety

●     High blood pressure

●     Abnormal heart rhythms

●     Chest pain

They also help to overcome hypertension and other cardinal events.

 

Types of Beta-blockers

 

There are basically three types of Beta-Blockers:

 

1. Beta-1(B1) receptors- These are located in the heart and regulate cardiac activities.
2. Beta-2(B2) receptors- Activation of these receptors leads to smooth muscle relaxation and can also help treat Asthma and premature labor.
3. Beta3(B3) receptors- It helps in breaking down fat cells.

 

Here are some common brands of Beta-Blockers:

 

●     Acebutolol

●     Atenolol

●     Bisoprolol

●     Carvedilol

●     Metoprolol

●     Esmolol

●     Nebivolol

●     Nadolol

●     Sotalol

●     betaxolol

 

How Beta-Blockers work?

 

Doctors even refer to Beta-Blockers as beta-adrenoceptors as these drugs can block the effects of epinephrine(adrenalin), and norepinephrine(noradrenaline).

 Epinephrine is a hormone that, when it travels to the heart, starts pumping blood faster which increases the risk of Heart attack and can also lead to anxiety. Helping with this, Beta-Blockers reduce the chance of heart attack, high blood pressure, hypertension, stress, heart failure and other heart diseases.

 

Side-effects 

 

Here are some possible side-effects of Beta-Blockers you need to know:

 

●     Beta-Blockers can affect the blood supply of your fingers and toes, resulting in cold fingers and toes.

●     Rashes and other skin reactions.

●     Gastrointestinal problems like Nausea and vomiting

●     Risk of Anaesthesia

●     Feeling tired or lightheaded

●     Asthma

●     Fluid retention

 

 

Benefits

 

Beta-Blockers are beneficial for the following reasons:

 

●     Effective for patients of heart disease like abnormal heart rhythms, heart attack etc.

●     It gives you rapid relief.

●     It can work well in case of anxiety.

●     It helps in lowering blood pressure and high heart rate.

 

Risks

 

Though Beta-Blockers help to treat many conditions, they may also harm you in some situations:

 

●     Asthma patients should avoid the use of non-selective Beta-Blockers.

●     It may worsen the symptoms if taken after a heart attack.

●     You should not stop taking it all of a sudden as it could lead to a severe heart problem like a heart attack.

●     You should take doctor advice before taking it if you have chest pain.

●     It may cause trouble sleeping and other disturbances like nightmares.

●     It is not recommended to those who already have problems with low blood pressure.

●     People with Diabetes should regularly check their blood sugar if they are consuming it.

●     If you are pregnant or feeding your infant, you should take a prescription from a doctor before taking it as it may affect the baby.

 

Conclusion

 

Sometimes, Beta-Blockers are very helpful, and sometimes it may have side effects, so it is advised to people that they may take them with Doctor’s prescription, especially if you had a heart attack before.