Muscle pain can be one of the most common reasons people struggle through a workday, skip exercise, or lose a night's sleep. A 2025 study in Frontiers in Public Health found that low back pain now affects 452.8 million working-age people worldwide, an increase of more than 50% since 1990. That means hundreds of millions of people are trying to do their jobs while managing pain. Yet for a problem this widespread, the treatments available today still ask patients to accept a compromise between pain relief and drowsiness.
Most prescription muscle relaxants are in tablet or injection form, where the drug travels through the bloodstream and acts through the brain before it reaches the muscle. This indirect route may be why many patients feel drowsy, dizzy, or foggy after taking them. A 2025 review summarized in American Family Physician found that these side effects affected the patients' overall quality of life. Over-the-counter topical products tend to numb or distract from pain without relaxing the muscles, which is the root cause of pain. Hence, patients could be left choosing between relief and staying alert.
