Over the last year, I’ve worked to bring the public’s attention to dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) a forgotten natural therapy which rapidly treats a wide range of conditions and that many studies have shown is very safe (provided it’s used correctly), and, most importantly (thanks to the 1994 DSHEA act which legalized all natural therapies) is now readily available.
Since I believe DMSO has immense potential to offer the medical community and individual patients, I’ve diligently worked to compile evidence that best supports its rediscovery. As such, throughout this series, I’ve presented over a thousand studies that DMSO effectively treats:
Strokes, paralysis, a wide range of neurological disorders (e.g., Down Syndrome and dementia), and many circulatory disorders (e.g., Raynaud’s, varicose veins, hemorrhoids), which I discussed here.
A wide range of tissue injuries, such as sprains, concussions, burns, surgical incisions, and spinal cord injuries (discussed here).
Chronic pain (e.g., from a bad disc, bursitis, arthritis, or complex regional pain syndrome), which I discussed here.
A wide range of autoimmune, protein, and contractile disorders, such as scleroderma, amyloidosis, and interstitial cystitis (discussed here).
A variety of head conditions, such as tinnitus, vision loss, dental problems, and sinusitis (discussed here).
A wide range of internal organ diseases, such as pancreatitis, infertility, liver cirrhosis, and endometriosis (discussed here).
A wide range of skin conditions, such as burns, varicose veins, acne, hair loss, ulcers, skin cancer, and many autoimmune dermatologic diseases (discussed here).
Many challenging infectious conditions, including chronic bacterial infections, herpes, and shingles (discussed here).
Many aspects of cancer (e.g., many of cancer’s debilitating symptoms, making cancer treatments more potent, greatly reducing the toxicity of conventional therapies, and turning cancer cells back into normal cells), which I discussed here.
Many lung disorders, including asthma, COPD, pulmonary fibrosis, and cystic fibrosis (discussed here).
Sadly, most of us have never heard about it because the FDA spent decades fighting an unconscionable battle to outlaw and erase DMSO from history.
DMSO Combination Therapies
DMSO’s ability to treat a wide range of illnesses results from its having a variety of highly unusual properties that appear to address the root causes of disease. At the same time however, since DMSO has so many different therapeutic mechanisms (e.g., increasing parasympathetic activity, increasing circulation, regenerating senescent cells, being highly anti-inflammatory, blocking pain conduction etc.), despite having now reviewed thousands of studies on it, there is still a great deal I do not understand about the substance.
This is particularly true for one of DMSO’s most noteworthy properties, its ability to enhance the effects of other substances, which in many cases makes it possible to surmount major dilemmas traditionally seen with those therapies. This is particularly important, as while DMSO helps the majority of recipients (e.g., around 85-90% of readers reported relief from chronic pain), in many instances where DMSO alone will not suffice to address an ailment (e.g., pain), a combination therapy will.
Note: in some cases, the lack of efficacy comes from an incorrect method of administration of DMSO (as some applications are more potent for certain types of issues) or using poor quality DMSO.
DMSO’s unique ability to function as a vehicle is due to the fact that it can pass through biological membranes without damaging them, so once it contacts the skin, it rapidly spreads throughout the body, while simultaneously it readily dissolves most substances and is able to bring them with it into the body.
Note: DMSO also significantly increases fluid circulation throughout the body (including in and out of cells), further enhancing its ability to spread what it carries throughout the body.
This is very useful as:
• Be able to apply a medication topically or orally that would typically require an IV or injection.
• Making drugs become much more potent and able to treat conditions that the illnesses otherwise will not respond to (e.g., these mixtures can penetrate and treat antibiotic resistant bacteria or chemotherapy resistant cancers).
• Allowing lower doses of a drug to be used, which are often much less toxic (as you no longer need to flood the body with it to ensure a high enough concentration is reached in the target area—especially if that area has chronically poor blood flow).
• In many cases, counteract the toxicity of the blended medication (as DMSO protects tissue from injury).
• In some cases, there is a potent synergy between two substances that creates a medical breakthrough (e.g., when DMSO is combined with the pathology dye hematoxylin, it becomes a highly potent cancer therapy which does not affect normal cells).
Note: while DMSO cannot be patented, combinations can. As such, while DMSO alone is “unsafe” “ineffective” and “unproven” many “safe and effective” DMSO pharmaceutical combinations exist, including many approved by the FDA.
In turn, virtually all the previous applies to natural therapies as well, and in many cases DMSO is able to solve major challenges with the treatment or dramatically increase its potency and efficacy. Unfortunately, in many cases, it’s hard to say how much of the benefit comes from DMSO vs. what’s added to it, as many of the benefits I see from combination therapies are similar to what DMSO alone could do. Likewise, at this point, we’ve only barely touched the surface of what can be combined with DMSO, and I am relatively certain many more combinations like DMSO and hematoxylin are waiting to be discovered, which have paradigm shifting therapeutic synergies.
Given all of this, there are a few critical points to understand about natural DMSO combination therapies:
• In many cases where DMSO alone does not work for a condition (which DMSO is known to improve), a combination therapy will. For example, yesterday I learned someone I had been suffering from a severe migraine where DMSO didn’t work for her (which for others, it often does), so shortly before going to the ER, she decided to mix DMSO with two botanicals, responded immediately, and within an hour, her three-day migraine was over (which was life-changing for her).
• Many have found that combining DMSO with their favorite natural therapies has allowed them to take medical care into their own hands and “be their own doctor.”
• While DMSO combination therapies are generally safe, there are a variety of risks and safety considerations that need to be taken into consideration, particularly once one begins experimenting with them. It is for this reason that in the previous article, I listed a variety of critical rules to understand when creating your own combination therapies. As such, if you decide to explore creating therapeutic DMSO combinations, you need to read the previous article first (available here).
• While DMSO has a variety of positive pharmaceutical synergies, it appears to work best when combined with natural therapies. Additionally, as natural substances tend to be less toxic than pharmaceuticals, you are much less likely to run into a complication from potentiating a medication (but nonetheless, you should still read the previous article). That said, it is still essential to make sure you use high-quality products to avoid the risk of low-quality ones, which have toxic additives or contaminants in them, and likewise to avoid substances that are known to be toxic or (once filtered and sterile) never appropriate to infuse.
• Much like conventional therapies, many DMSO combinations remain undiscovered, and simultaneously, some of the combinations I’ve seen promoted are likely unnecessary (as DMSO alone would have the same effect).
Additionally, in many cases, natural alternatives to cosmetics can be made by combining pure fats, oils, or herbal extracts with DMSO, which is often quite advantageous, as beyond being quite effective, they avoid the toxicity, reactions, and dehydration of the skin or mucus membranes commonly seen with standard cosmetics.
Natural Combination Studies
Since DMSO has so much value as a pharmaceutical vehicle, a large volume of scientific literature exists on DMSO being used in combination with pharmaceutical drugs, and many different approved formulations exist (highlighting the absurdity of our medical bureaucracy, as alone, DMSO is “dangerous and unproven” but when combined with other patentable agents “safe and effective”).
As such, I covered that body of literature in the previous article, both to show, contrary to popular belief, that DMSO is widely used in medicine (provided money can be made), and so readers considering combination therapies could gain critical insights into how DMSO combinations interact with the body.
Beyond pharmaceuticals, many approved DMSO products also incorporate natural agents such as dexpanthenol (a form of B5 used for wound healing), menthol, camphor, lavandin, lavender oil, coriander oil, arnica, potassium iodide, or capsicum. In turn, a significant number of studies exist throughout the literature on using natural DMSO combination therapies, which I will now cover (excluding ones where heparin was used, as they are covered in the previous article, which details the majority of the DMSO combination studies).
Note: unless otherwise specified, all DMSO treatments were done topically (frequently with a DMSO containing ointment).
Chinese Herbs
A significant amount of DMSO research has been done in China, which has naturally led to studying it in combination with traditional Chinese Herbs, where together, they have been found to help a wide range of conditions:
• In rats with Alzheimer’s disease, DMSO and Ginkgo biloba extract (GBE), administered for 14 days, improved learning and memory by reducing escape latency and searching distance in a water maze test.
• In 33 patients with severe psoriasis (25 with psoriasis vulgaris 7 with psoriasis guttate 1 with psoriasis pustulosa) found that an extract of camptotheca nuts dissolved in 70% DMSO was a “quick, effective and convenient treatment,” as a year later, 21 had a complete resolution of the disease, while the remaining 12 had greatly improved (but a few eruptions still could be found along with discolored patches of skin, especially on the lower legs where lesions had previously been reported).
• In 31 patients with postherpetic neuralgia, DMSO and a Chinese herbal medicine reduced pain scores and improved symptoms more effectively than standard medical therapy.
• A hospital dermatology department reported that DMSO and 0.05% lithospermum (purple gromwell) effectively treated viral warts.
• In mice with cervical carcinoma, treatment with 50 mg/kg DMSO combined with 20 mg/kg Zhenhuang injection extended survival by 65.81%–69.83% in ascitic tumors and inhibited solid tumor growth by 60.83%–68.33%, significantly outperforming DMSO alone (21.37%–25.86% survival, 22.50%–25.83% inhibition) or Zhenhuang alone (41.38%–43.59% survival, 37.50%–41.67% inhibition).
• A 15% DMSO, 1% mefenamic acid, and 10% knotweed herb extract ointment, demonstrated significant anti-inflammatory effects in rats by reducing experimentally induced paw edema and having a more prolonged effect over 24 hours than standard care.
• Many studies have shown DMSO enhances the absorption of plant extracts (e.g., for ginseng1,2). In this report, DMSO was found to increase the penetration of traditional ointment (distilled from honeysuckle, dandelion, forsythia, Chinese violet, and salvia miltiorrhiza).
Note: some Chinese formulations combine steroids, DMSO, and borneol (a traditional medicine found in herbs like camphor, rosemary, thyme, ginger, and cannabis).
