Unlocking DMSO — The Forgotten Molecule That Makes Drugs Work Better, Safer, and Faster

• Injuries such as sprains, concussions, burns, surgical incisions, and spinal cord injuries (discussed here).

• Strokes, paralysis, many neurological disorders (e.g., Down syndrome and dementia), and numerous circulatory disorders (e.g., Raynaud’s, varicose veins, or hemorrhoids), which were discussed here.

• Chronic pain (e.g., from a bad disc, bursitis, arthritis, or complex regional pain syndrome), which was discussed here.

• Many autoimmune, protein, and contractile disorders, such as scleroderma, amyloidosis, and interstitial cystitis (discussed here).

• Head conditions, such as tinnitus, vision loss, dental problems, and sinusitis (discussed here).

• 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 infections, such as shingles, herpes, chronic ear or dental infections, and osteomyelitis (discussed here).

• Cancers and many complications from the illness and its treatments (discussed here).

• Membrane permeability — DMSO will pass through biological membranes without damaging them, which is extremely unusual.² This property is believed to be due to its exchange and interchange with water in biological membranes.³ 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.⁴

• Rapid distribution — Once it contacts the skin, DMSO rapidly spreads throughout the body. Within an hour of being applied to the skin, it can be found within the bones and teeth.⁵ Interestingly, DMSO does not penetrate tooth enamel or nails, which may explain why certain conditions affecting these structures require different approaches.⁶

• Solvent properties — DMSO is a highly potent solvent that can dissolve a wide range of polar and non-polar substances (and hence is sometimes used to solubilize other drug products). 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., DMSO is more effective than propylene glycol at delivering topical steroids into the body⁷).

• Enhanced circulation and cellular transport — Beyond simply transporting substances into the body, DMSO also greatly increases circulation. 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, it changes the permeability of the cell membrane, allowing new things to enter the cell and waste products to leave the 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).

This combination of properties enables the topical administration of drugs that would normally require injection, and in many cases, can significantly increase their potency because it penetrates deep regions of the body that pharmaceuticals typically have difficulty entering, or because it bypasses the cellular barriers that normally exclude foreign substances.

In turn, lower doses of drugs can frequently be used (reducing their toxicity) because they become more potent, and because DMSO combinations can be locally applied to bring a drug to a target region, rather than taking a standard oral dose that raises the entire body’s target concentration.

• Specialized DMSO pharmaceuticals — These properties allow well established drugs to be combined with DMSO. For example, NSAIDs (which are also used to treat pain and musculoskeletal injuries) have a variety of side effects when consumed orally (e.g., fatal NSAIDs gastric bleeds killed over 16,000 Americans in 1999⁸). However, when combined with DMSO, NSAIDs can be applied topically to the site of injury, thereby avoiding the risks of oral NSAID consumption.

One FDA-approved drug (Pennsaid) does just that, and in clinical trials, it was found to have minimal systemic toxicity. DMSO significantly enhances the efficacy of diclofenac (Pennsaid’s NSAID) while exhibiting much lower toxicity compared to oral diclofenac.^9,10,11,12

Many other FDA approved pharmaceutical products utilizing DMSO further demonstrate its therapeutic versatility:

• Contamination risk — One of the major risks of DMSO is its potential to exacerbate the effects of a toxic substance already present in the skin, so it is crucial to clean the skin thoroughly before applying DMSO. The original investigator of DMSO learned this lesson the hard way when researching toxic pesticides.¹⁷

[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.

Remarkably, despite the immense potential harm, serious incidents are extremely rare, suggesting either that users are consistently careful about cleaning skin prior to DMSO applications or that the actual risk is limited to highly toxic substances.

• Potentiation effects — Many agents become significantly more potent when mixed with DMSO, and in a few reports made rare side effects typically seen at higher doses manifest (something which has occasionally been reported with the more toxic antibiotics like fluoroquinolones or certain chemotherapy drugs).

With natural substances, this is generally not problematic (as their potency and toxicity are typically much less than pharmaceuticals). Still, it remains a real consideration (although I have not come across any reports of this injuring someone).

• Size limitations — While DMSO can draw things inside the body, it can only do so for smaller molecules, with the size limit thought to be around 500 daltons (although there are numerous examples of larger drugs also being transported).

For this reason, DMSO tends to work well as a vehicle for individual drugs or chemicals but not larger proteins (e.g., peptides). Likewise, pathogenic organisms are far too big for DMSO to transport, so areas of application do not need to be disinfected prior to application.

Note: Below the skin, the transportation limit is much higher (e.g., evidence suggests DMSO can bring molecules larger than 70,000 Da through the blood-brain barrier, opening even wider possibilities for intravenous applications).¹⁸

• Purity requirements — When making DMSO combinations, it’s essential to obtain pure ingredients, as many pharmaceutical and supplement preparations contain multiple ingredients beyond the primary active compound

Note: One of DMSO’s most promising combinations is with a common dye (hematoxylin) as this combination selectively targets tumors with no toxicity to normal tissue and has remarkable efficacy against a wide range of cancers. Unfortunately, hematoxylin is often mixed with heavy metals (to better stain tissues), illustrating the need to ensure pure substances with DMSO.

• Leaching — As a solvent, DMSO can leach toxic chemicals (e.g., those added to the surfaces of plastics) and hence later bring them into the body. For this reason, it is advisable to avoid storing DMSO in plastic that is not DMSO resistant and to avoid mixing or preparing DMSO with plastic tools.

In most cases, DMSO only leaches plastic at concentrations about 20%, so if DMSO is diluted before putting it in contact with plastic many of these issues can be avoided. Likewise, many DMSO compatible materials exist for preparing DMSO combinations — all of which is discussed further here.

Note: Most implanted medical devices are not at risk of DMSO leaching them as it dilutes far below 20% by the time it reaches them and can contact their plastic components. The one exception are within dental implants, and for that reason, DMSO mouthwashes must always be sufficiently diluted.

• What we know — Most pharmaceutical interactions, unfortunately, have not been studied. Fortunately (particularly since over 61% of Americans are on at least one medication¹⁹), significant reactions are rarely reported.

Generally speaking, the risk for potentiation is stronger the closer they are taken together (particularly when mixed together in an IV infusion) so it is generally advised to space DMSO and a pharmaceutical by at least two hours, and in the case of more toxic ones (e.g., fluoroquinolones and certain chemotherapies) by at least two days.

Note: DMSO can also mitigate many pharmaceutical toxicities, such as gentamicin’s kidney toxicity²⁰ or many injuries caused by chemotherapy.

Most of the research into DMSO’s interactions was conducted during the initial trials in the 1960s, where it was discovered DMSO significantly potentiated alcohol and also potentiated barbiturates, corticosteroids, insulin, digitalis, nitroglycerin, quinidine sulfate, and chemotherapy²¹ (leading to lower doses sometimes being needed).

Since then, DMSO has also been observed to potentiate certain opioids (e.g., morphine patches), NSAIDs, anticonvulsants (e.g., gabapentin), and certain sedatives (e.g., trazodone). Users typically do not report potentiation of anticoagulants; however, as a serious risk might exist, it is advisable to monitor your coagulation parameters when using both concurrently.

Note: Insulin potentiation is hypothesized to result from DMSO’s protein refolding capacity restoring the functionality of insulin receptors.²²

Conversely, DMSO has also been observed to reverse the effects of Botox, likely by neutralizing the toxin induced paralysis.

• Antibiotics — Antibiotic resistance is a major problem in medicine. However, when combined with DMSO, many organisms that are chronic and debilitating or life threatening (e.g., tuberculosis) lose their resistance to antibiotics.

DMSO also makes it possible to reach infections such as those within the bones that are normally difficult to reach and otherwise require maintaining very high blood concentrations of the drugs to ensure this result. Finally, in many cases (both for cost and to protect the gut microbiome) being able to topically apply an oral or IV antibiotic can be immensely advantageous (e.g., for mastitis or Lyme disease).

• Antifungals — Fungal infections are often located in areas that topical and oral antibiotics have difficulty penetrating. However, research shows combining an antifungal with topical DMSO can reach those infections and there are many reports of multiyear fungal infections quickly resolving from this combination.

• Herpes and shingles — Some of the most potent antiviral medications have difficulty penetrating through a lesion to where the virus resides. However, once combined with DMSO they do, and many clinical trials have proven the efficacy of these antiviral combinations.

• Corticosteroids — For issues within the body, steroids (which have significant systemic toxicity) must be injected or taken orally. When combined with DMSO, this is often no longer needed, and as DMSO potentiates steroids, much lower and far less toxic doses can be taken to address an autoimmune or musculoskeletal issue.

• Chemotherapy — By potentiating chemotherapy, DMSO has been proven to cure chemotherapy resistant cancers, and in many cases does so with much lower doses being needed.

Recently, owing to the emerging popularity of using ivermectin for treating cancer (which sometimes produces spectacular results but typically fits best as a complementary therapy), physicians have begun combining ivermectin with DMSO into a paste and topically applying it over tumors. While data is limited, this appears to consistently work, and sometimes produces dramatic responses like this one James Miller MD recently shared with me:

“I had a patient with a thoracic sarcoma that was debilitatingly painful with growth through a couple of ribs and metastases to his skull base that became basically pain free after 2 days of topical DMSO-ivermectin. At his 2.5 week follow up, he was completely pain free and had returned to playing racketball.”

Note: Nothing comparable to do this can be done with conventional cancer options (and given the severity of that situation, what would be used is also fairly toxic).