Over the last nine months, 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:
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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.
Fortunately, much in the same way DMSO caught on in the 1960s, providing that evidence has allowed it to make a rapid resurgence (e.g., I’ve now received over 2,000 stories from readers who have often had remarkable improvements from using it).
Combination Therapies
DMSO’s ability to treat a wide range of illnesses results from it 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, increase 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. As such, one of the greatest challenges throughout this series has been to avoid claiming anything about the substance that’s not supported by the existing scientific literature, particularly when it’s a question many want answers to.
DMSO is one of the most studied, yet still poorly understood, pharmaceutical
products of our time.
Note: after seeing this quote, I queried a few AI systems, which concluded that between 50,000 to 100,000 studies have been published on the medical and chemical properties of DMSO.
One of DMSO’s most noteworthy abilities is 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. Unfortunately, since there is an almost infinite number of substances one could combine with DMSO’s function as a “vehicle” remains one of the least studied aspects of the compound, and is specifically for that reason I had this subject be the last major part of the series. Likewise, over the years I have come up with so many different potentially promising therapeutic DMSO combinations, but I still have not been able to try most of them.
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 is not sufficient to address an ailment (e.g., pain), a combination therapy will.
Note: DMSO (alone or combined with other agents) can be administered in a variety of ways such as a liquid (sometimes applied with a cotton swab, brush, or gauze), a cream, gel, roll-on or spray; taken internally as an oral solution, infusion, or injection; nebulized or used as eye drops, ear drops, nasal drops, mouth rinses, enemas, and bladder irrigations. In many cases, multiple modalities are done concurrently (e.g., oral and topical DMSO is often quite helpful for systemic arthritis).
Combining DMSO
In pharmacology, DMSO is often referred to as a “vehicle” that helps other drugs get into the body. Because of this, while DMSO only has one approved (intravesical) use (which has led to many thinking it must not be safe), a variety of drugs are on the market that use DMSO as a vehicle to bring them inside the body. This is because DMSO is a unique solvent that:
• Will pass through biological membranes without damaging them (which is extremely unusual and believed to be due to its exchange and interchange with water in biological membranes).
Note: in addition to not harming the skin, when tested with other substances that could enter the brain, DMSO was not observed to alter the cells lining the blood-brain barrier or the brain tissue.
• Once it contacts the skin, it rapidly spreads throughout the body (e.g., within an hour of being applied to the skin, it can be found within the bones and teeth).
Note: DMSO does not penetrate tooth enamel or nails.
• It is a highly potent solvent that can dissolve a wide range of substances.
• If a substance is dissolved within DMSO, DMSO can typically bring it into the body. While a few other substances can also serve as vehicles, DMSO is the most potent in pharmacology (e.g., this study found that DMSO was more effective than propylene glycol at delivering topical steroids into the body).
Note: after a report of copper chloride and DMSO coloring someone’s skin, a team attempted to replicate this effect with a variety of dyes but were unable to do so (nor could they alter autoimmune skin discoloration).
• In addition to bringing substances into the body, DMSO also greatly increases circulation and by taking the place of water (as it is small, can form hydrogen bonds and is relatively polar) while being both fat and water soluble, changes the permeability of the cell membrane, allowing new things to enter the cell and waste products to leave cells. As a result, DMSO is able to both spread what it transports throughout the body and significantly enhance the body’s innate ability to circulate what has already been absorbed (including to previously inaccessible areas).
As such, DMSO enables the topical administration of drugs that would normally require injection, and in many cases, can significantly increase their potency (e.g., because it penetrates deep regions of the body that pharmaceuticals typically have difficulty entering or because it bypasses the barrier that cells have to foreign substances).
Note: there are likely other reasons why DMSO increases the potency of substances mixed with it, but the ones I’ve looked at are more speculative and did not have enough evidence supporting them.
Decades ago, I had a friend who used DMSO to get high by mixing it with street drugs who shared that the high from it was much stronger than what one would experience from injecting the drug (which is traditionally the strongest high one can experience) and that their group quickly realized they could only do this with pharmaceutical grade drugs as street preparations had a variety of impurities which frequently made them get quite ill when taking them. About ten years after sharing this with me, my friend died from a drug overdose (which did not involve DMSO). In contrast, most of the people I know who’ve mixed DMSO with natural substances either had positive to neutral experiences at worst.
In my eyes, there are a few key lessons from this story:
1. One of the major risks of DMSO is applying it to the skin if a toxic substance is already present. For example, in 1965, the German Magazine Der Spiegel (No. 19) shared that the original investigator of DMSO:
[Herschler] wanted to investigate whether certain highly toxic pesticides were soluble in DMSO. The researcher felt how soluble they were when he sprayed some of the solution onto his skin. DMSO transported the poison into the body within minutes. The poison worked: Herschler temporarily suffered from impaired consciousness and shortness of breath.
Likewise, within the thousands of comments I’ve received here, a reader shared a case they heard of where someone accidentally got a (fortunately non-fatal) overdose of nicotine because it was on the skin DMSO was applied to, causing it to be rapidly absorbed into their system.
Because of this, we always emphasize the importance of cleaning the application area before applying DMSO. Remarkably, aside from these precautions, to the best of my knowledge, no one has reported (either to me personally, in the literature, or within the DMSO community) becoming seriously ill from applying DMSO to skin that had a contaminant or toxin on it. This suggests that users have been consistently diligent about cleaning beforehand, or that the actual risk is limited to highly toxic substances—i.e., most compounds typically present on the skin are not harmful enough to cause systemic toxicity when absorbed through DMSO.
Note: one possible explanation for this unexpected outcome is that DMSO, as a bidirectional “channel opener,” may not only enhance the absorption of compounds into tissues but also facilitate their excretion—helping to mitigate any potential harm.
2. Many agents will become significantly more potent when mixed with DMSO. With natural substances, this is generally not an issue (as their potency and toxicity are typically much less than pharmaceuticals), but it is still a real risk to consider. Despite this, I have not run into reports (either in the literature or from readers) of a natural combination DMSO therapy creating serious issues (which was quite surprising).
3. Since very little quality control exists for them, one of the major problems with street drugs are all the things they are cut with (or impurities that accumulate during the manufacturing process). For this reason, even though many people over the years have used DMSO as a creative way to get high, I strongly advise against doing this (especially since there is also the risk of an overdose if too much is given at one time).
4. This same impurity issue could apply to anything else too. For this reason, whenever making DMSO mixes that others have had success with, it is essential to obtain a pure mixture (e.g., many pharmaceutical and supplement preparations contain multiple ingredients beyond the primary pharmaceutical).
Note: I am now receiving stories from readers who’ve had success using DMSO combined with hematoxylin to treat cancer (which is a remarkably effective cancer treatment). The standard hematoxylin preparations are bound to a [toxic] metal because this makes them better able to stain tissues than pure hematoxylin. For this reason, I’ve tried to emphasize the importance of only mixing DMSO with pure hematoxylin.
As such, caution should be taken when taking potent pharmaceuticals at the same time as DMSO. Presently, I’ve reviewed a lot of published reports and reader stories where a pharmaceutical drug was mixed with DMSO and applied topically with no issues following, however to the best of my knowledge, none of those were with drugs that can easily cause overdoses. The one exception comes from Jim McCann (a longtime DMSO practitioner), who reported seeing cases of individuals becoming seriously ill when an IV was given that contained both DMSO and an (unspecified) anticoagulant or steroid. Given that topical preparations of heparin (which was the IV only anticoagulant in use at McCann’s time) and steroids mixed with DMSO have caused no issues in clinical trials, if his observations were correct (which they may not have been), I suspect they resulted from both being infused together in an IV.
At the same time however, while drug potentiation is a potential safety concern, it is also invaluable in medicine. This is because frequently, it is quite difficult to get a drug to its target site in the body, requiring sustained high doses of it so that enough of the drug arrives at the target site (which can require exposing the body to a toxic dose).
DMSO Drug Interactions
Given DMSO’s ability to potentiate pharmaceuticals, this raises an obvious question—is it safe to take it alongside other drugs? The best answer I can share is that:
• Most of the combinations have not been studied, particularly those that entered the market after the 1960, and hence are unknown (much in the same way many interactions between approved pharmaceuticals are almost entirely unknown).
• Many DMSO authors (to play it safe) advise not taking DMSO if you are taking pharmaceuticals, which in my eyes is useless advice as 61% of Americans are on at least one and the people who tend to need DMSO the most tend to be on numerous ones for their symptoms.
•DMSO’s potentiation is the strongest if taken alongside a drug (e.g., particularly if both are in an IV infusion), and it is generally thought that if there is a two hour separation between them, the potentiation is much less.
•While it potentiates drugs, DMSO can also mitigate many toxicities of pharmaceuticals (e.g. gentamicin’s kidney toxicity).
• If a pharmaceutical is fairly toxic (e.g., gadolinium for an MRI), it’s generally a good policy not to take it alongside DMSO.
• In many cases, DMSO reduces the amount of a drug needed to get the desired effect (which is quite helpful if the drug is toxic at the prescribed dose but nonetheless continued out of necessity). Because of this, it’s essential to monitor the effects of the drugs you are taking and determine if lower doses are indicated due to DMSO’s potentiation (or DMSO healing the underlying problem that the drug was being prescribed to address).
• Likewise if you are taking other drugs, starting with a low dose of DMSO and gradually working it up is advised (so you can monitor for side effects).
• Severe drug reactions from concurrently taking DMSO and another drug are actually quite rare and the DMSO community has found most drugs can be taken alongside DMSO.
Presently, the specifics we know on this topic are as follows:
• In a 1967 report of 500 cases, investigators noted that a few of the patients concurrently on a medication (2 on insulin, 2 on digitalis, 1 on nitroglycerine and 1 on quinidine sulfate) had the effects of their drugs increase and needed to be switched to a lower dose (whereas other drugs like the psychiatric ones of the era were never potentiated).
• When Merck conducted DMSO clinical trials in 1965, they reported the two primary issues were alcohol and barbiturates becoming potentiated (e.g., suggesting benzodiazepines might be as well). In a few cases, this resulted in people who drank cocktails after becoming extremely drunk.
• Studies in humans and animals (detailed here) showed that DMSO accelerated the elimination of alcohol by 16.67%-28.33%, increased the lethality of alcohol to animals (particularly if DMSO was taken an hour before alcohol) and significantly increased both the cognitive impairment and reduced nerve conduction seen with alcohol consumption.
• DMSO has been observed to enhance the potency of certain opioids (e.g., morphine patches), NSAIDs, Novalgin, anticonvulsants (e.g., gabapentin), sedatives (e.g., trazodone), corticosteroids, gold salts, insulin, barbiturates, and antibiotics—which in many cases can be extremely advantageous.
Note: insulin potentiation is hypothesized to result from DMSO’s protein refolding capacity restoring the functionality of the body’s insulin receptors.
• DMSO has been observed to reverse the effects of Botox (which is a toxin that paralyzes muscles, so by healing that injury, Botox stops “working”).
• DMSO has not been reported to potentiate anticoagulants (e.g., change INR values) as it works through a different pathway to increase circulation and eliminate clots than those drugs do (with aspirin being the one exception, as numerous users have reported they could lower their dose). That said, the possibility of potentiation is there, so I believe it is important to monitor your coagulation values while on the drugs to ensure you are not being excessively anticoagulated.
Note: the only signs I’ve seen arguing the opposite are that I’ve had two or three readers report they began having nose bleeds after starting DMSO.
•In a sample of roughly 10,000 people receiving antibiotics and DMSO concurrently, 4 reported experiencing significant reactions from the drugs that typically are very rare, suggesting a potentiation of toxicity occurred, which I believe followed either a fluoroquinolone, sulfonamide or macrolide, with the most severe following a fluoroquinolone (while in contrast DMSO did not potentiate other toxic antibiotics like dioxidine). Likewise, while DMSO typically improves chemotherapy, there have been a few reports of rare but significant side effects sometimes seen with chemotherapy drugs in individuals taking both concurrently.
Note: some of these reactions included circulatory problems/dizziness, generalized allergies, and hematomas.
For this reason, with more toxic drugs (applying abundance of caution), some advise spacing them out at least 2 days from DMSO.
Note: in some of these instances, the patient did not disclose to the DMSO providing doctor that they were on those other drugs, which illustrates why it’s important to make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what else is in the picture.
• A few compounds have been shown to become more toxic with DMSO (e.g., mice and rats given quaternary ammonium salts showed increased toxicity when pentolinium tartrate and hexamethonium bitartrate were dissolved in DMSO, but not when given alone, and DMSO also increased the lethality of benzene), while in contrast other toxic substances (e.g., decamethonium iodide) became less toxic with DMSO.
•Other non-pharmaceutical interactions can also occur. For example, DMSO neutralizes chlorine in drinking water (reducing it to chloride) providing an emergency way to “purify” chlorinated water.
Carrying Size
Many of the bacteria in your mouth are highly pathogenic. Nonetheless, (to the best of my knowledge), no one has gotten sepsis from putting DMSO into their mouth. This is because while DMSO (a very small molecule) is extremely effective at transporting things inside the body, as things get larger, DMSO can no longer transport them, and even the smallest viruses are far larger than DMSO’s maximum carrying size.
Note: while bacteria cannot be transported by DMSO, a theoretical risk exists for the smaller toxins some produce.
Much of this was originally learned after the discovers of DMSO realized a non-injectable way to administer insulin would be extremely helpful for diabetic patients, but regrettably discovered this didn’t work as insulin (a peptide) was too large to enter the body with DMSO. In contrast, most natural chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs are within DMSO’s size limit and hence can be absorbed.
Note: DMSO’s ability to function as a vehicle increases with increasing DMSO concentrations, but in some cases, 90% DMSO is a more effective carrier than 100% DMSO.
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As best as I could tell, the exact skin carrying limit of DMSO has not been definitively studied, and most current sources agree it transports substances less than 500 Daltons (Da), and may to a lesser degree transport those between 500-1000 Daltons (whereas insulin is 5808 Da).
Note: one study sensitized participants to injected allergens and then tested whether topical DMSO mixed with the allergen could elicit the same reaction. They found that penicillin consistently elicited a reaction, while castor beans induced a small reaction, while cotton seeds, celery, and buckwheat did not. This suggests a small degree of penetration of roughly 10,000 Da substances with DMSO. In the case of vaccines (which need larger biomolecules to enter the body), I’ve seen conflicting data (e.g., one study showed DMSO made it possible to deliver a plasmid based vaccine through the skin, while many others showed it interfered with the oral typhoid vaccine).
I suspect the actual limit is higher, as I’ve seen many cases of larger drugs that are clearly being transported (e.g., ivermectin is 875 Da). Stanley Jacob found that DMSO significantly increased the penetration of heparin into dog urinary bladders.1,2,3 Likewise, many studies have found a DMSO-heparin gel was therapeutically active in patients.
Heparin for context has a molecular weight of 2,000-30,000 Da (typically averaging 12,000-15,000 Da or 4,000-6,000 Da for low weight formulations), greatly exceeding the 500 Da threshold, suggesting either that the 500Da limit is wrong, that all of those studies and outsiders investigating them made an erroneous conclusion (e.g., benefits attributed to DMSO-Heparin were just due to DMSO), or that heparin being extremely electronegative increases DMSO’s ability to transport it.
Note: a Dalton is equal to the mass of a Hydrogen atom, so a strand of human DNA is approximately 2,080,000,000,000 Da, whereas aspirin is 180.16 Da and prednisone is 358.43 Da.
Lastly, that limit (which is not constrained by the skin) appears to be much higher inside the body. For example, there is some evidence suggesting DMSO can bring molecules larger than 70,000 Da through the blood-brain barrier (suggesting an even wider range of possibilities for DMSO IV mixtures).
