SUMMARY:  

Carisoprodol is a skeletal muscle relaxant that is most commonly known as the brand name Soma. The lesser known brand name is Vanadom. This drug has benefits in treating discomfort experienced from acute painful skeletal muscle conditions over a 2-3 week duration of therapy. The benefits beyond a short term duration (2-3 weeks) has not been proven. There are two strengths in a tablet form being 250 mg and 350 mg. The medication is dose qid with tid in addition to at bedtime. Carisoprodol forms the metabolite meprobamate which has anxiolytic and sedative effects. Since CYP2C19 function is crucial to the metabolism to meprobamate it is important to be aware of drugs that may affect CYP2C19 function along with other factors such as race and gender. Asian and African Americans are of note since there is higher prevalence of poor CYP2C19 metabolizer function. Also females generally have a higher exposure to carisoprodol but not to the metabolized form of meprobamate. When monitoring patients it is important to be aware of signs of misuse and abuse along with assessing their mental status along with their level or relief regarding pain and muscle spasms.