What's Getting Under Your Skin?

Brittany Kitt

 Have you ever been prescribed an over the counter pain relief cream by your doctor? If you are an athlete who has sustained injuries, chances are that you probably have! Dimethyl sulfoxide, more commonly known as DMSO, is a clear, odourless, liquid byproduct of the paper manufacturing industry that may one day be found in many over the counter topical pain relief creams (6)(2).

(4)

One main property of DMSO that makes it so useful for targeting pain, is the fact that it can actually penetrate through our skin, carrying with it drugs that can then act on specific areas of pain in our bodies (5). While this property is what makes DMSO so beneficial, it is also the cause of a lot of controversy surrounding this chemical. Some people believe that we don’t know enough about DMSO and therefore we shouldn’t be absorbing or ingesting it into our bodies, while other people are worried about DMSO increasing the absorption of unwanted chemicals and toxins through the skin. After all, skin is our body’s first and main line of defense when it comes to keeping harmful things from entering inside.

 While DMSO use for pain relief hasn’t been approved in Canada, DMSO has been approved in the use of treating painful bladder syndrome (interstitial cystitis) and scleroderma, a painful disease that causes hardening of the skin (3). DMSO is also being researched as an alternative form of medical treatment for particular illnesses including bladder cancer and brain/spinal injuries (1).

Overall, while DMSO possesses some qualities that make people uneasy, it’s penetrating abilities that have the potential to make it a very useful pharmaceutical agent and it is definitely a chemical that should be researched more.

References

1.  American cancer society. (2008). DMSO. Retrieved on November 14, 2014 from http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/pharmacologicalandbiologicaltreatment/dmso

2.  Dimethyl sulfoxide. In M.J. O’Neil (Ed.). (2006). The Merck index: an encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs and biologicals (14th ed. pp. 3256). Whitehouse Station, NJ: Merck Research Laboratories

3. Health Canada. (2014). Chemical substance – dimethyl sulfoxide. Retrieved on November 14, 2014 from http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/nhpid-bdipsn/ingredReq.do?id=11703&lang=eng

4. Hexal elements. (2014). Dimethyl sulfoxide. Retrieved on December 3, 2014 from http://www.hexal-elements.de/sandoz_ca/2/index-en.php?cat=t 

5. Muir, M. (2014). DMSO: many uses, much controversy. Retrieved on November 14, 2014 from http://www.dmso.org/articles/information/muir.htm

6 . Fischer science. (2007). Dimethyl sulfoxide. Retrieved on November 14, 2014 from http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/07770.htm