The sight of a person damaging their back or pulling a muscle doing something isn't all that uncommon. In a number of cases, pulling one's back is often used as a comedic device in cartoons, sitcoms, and even the occasional stage play. However, this situation occurs far too often in real life to really be ignored. In fact, this happens so often that there is a relatively large market out there for muscle relaxants and pain relievers, with a larger focus on the latter. The market for muscle relaxants tends to be for prescription drugs, though there are a few over the counter muscle relaxants. There are, however, two major problems that pharmaceutical companies that make over the counter muscle relaxants have to face.

First, there tends to be a popular conception that over the counter muscle relaxants don't actually exist. People simply don't seem to think that you can get a muscle relaxant, even a simple one, without having a prescription in hand. This may be linked to marketing and distribution, though even large pharmaceutical companies are suffering from the lack of over the counter muscle relaxant sales. The lack of awareness might also be linked to the fact that, up until fairly recently, muscle relaxants were available only if you had a prescription in hand. The appearance of over the counter muscle relaxants is relatively new in the market, and the public might not be fully aware of the development as of now.

Another problem is that even the few that are aware of the existence of over the counter muscle relaxants believe them to be ineffective. This is a problem that over the counter muscle relaxants have in common with the over the counter acne treatments. Most people simply believe that prescription drugs, having a higher concentration of the core compounds of the drug, are more effective. While it is generally true that medication requiring prescriptions are more potent and have higher concentrations of the core components than over the counter ones, there is a reason for those drugs requiring a doctor's permission.

Essentially, prescription drugs are reserved only for cases that are slightly worse than the usual cases referred to doctors. The higher concentration of chemicals in the medication is done to increase the effectiveness of the drug. Prescription medications are only to be used when over the counter muscle relaxants simply can't handle the job and more powerful ammunition is needed to deal with the problem. However, some people simply choose to bypass this typical procedure, though this is likely linked to the misconception that over the counter muscle relaxants simply don't exist.

The obvious solution for the first problem would be to increase the marketing of over the counter muscle relaxants. The method for how this should be carried out would, inevitably, depend upon the pharmaceutical companies that are doing the marketing. An increase in the supply might also be necessary, giving drug stores more reason to find ways to sell the medication. Pharmaceutical companies might not need to address the problem of the over the counter variants being too weak, if only because increasing the potency might cause some problems with the prescription variants.