Many years ago I read an assessment report for the licensing of a new topical analgesic.The assessment report is a publicly available document detailing how the application for a licence was reviewed and what conclusions were reached and why. To get a license for a medicine you have to provide to the responsible government agency (think: FDA) clinical proof that your product is effective, acceptably safe , etc etc. The agency then produces the assessment report, which concludes that the product has been reviewed, shown the be safe, effective, yadda yadda, and a licence may therefore be issued.
I’m not specifying the product or even the country, but his particular assessment report concluded (in so many words) "I have no f*ing idea whether this works or not, but the sponsor says it does, so give them a licence and tell them to stop bothering me."
I told you clinical trials in topical analgesics were difficult; but I have never seen anything else remotely like this. Extraordinary.
Fast forward a couple of decades. I was in conversation with a couple of hospital pharmacists barely a week ago, and for some reason this product and its assessment report came up. It turns out that this product is notorious. It appears that hospital doctors do prescribe it (after all, it’s topical and therefore intrinsically safer than a systemic drug) but when the script arrives in a hospital pharmacy, under government guidelines the pharmacist has to evaluate the script against proof of clinical efficacy - and so they decline to dispense it.
I suppose, in the greater scheme of things, that’s almost a rational outcome. Almost.
After a long, hot horse show day our group would fill a baby pool with cold water, glug in the Bigeloil, and sit drinking beer with our aching feet soaking. Heaven.
I still used it directly too for achey feet, knees etc. Great stuff.
You’re concerned that a major international drug manufacturer might prosecute you for libel because of a true statement you posted under a pseudonym on an anonymous-ish message board in another country?
I’m partial to stuff called Mineral Ice. It is just another mixture of menthol and isopropyl alcohol. The alcohol does get absorbed through the skin and relieves pain to some extent, don’t know if the menthol does anything special. I also use a CBD balm but I’m not sure it has any more effective on a sore body than rubbing it with lotion.
Several horse people we have known are great fans of DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide).
This is a super-solvent, and does apparently diffuse very rapidly into the bloodstream.
I don’t believe it is approved or recommended for human use, though.
Also it gives one a strong garlic taste in their mouths shortly after applying it. I actually did some original research on the stuff back in med school. My studies didn’t turn up decent enough results to publish, though.
I do too for occasional back muscle pain. As these things go my pain is not all that bad but it makes it hard to move. I used the extra strength patches which are a bit fussy to apply on your own to your own back (I’ve had to throw a few out because it became hopelessly stuck to itself).
When I first tried them about a year ago I was dubious but they actually really helped. Again, this is only for relatively minor back muscle pain. My BiL has chronic back pain which is lightyears worse than what I experienced and this would do next to nothing for him.
I’ve had arthritis knee pain for a couple of years. Finally decided to do something about it. I did the 3x hyaluronic acid injections and that was marginally helpful. My doc is now saying to apply this gel 2x daily, for 3 months and see how it goes. Today is day 2, and I’ll do it 2x daily for 3 months. But I’m skeptical.
