note: some people have had good luck with this and some bad experiences. No one in our group has used it for long enough to personally know what the long term side-effects might be, as far as I know. One person has had great relief with the IV's in Mexico and another had terrible side effects when given to her for interstitial cystitis, which she ended up not having. S.C.

Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is a commonly available product with a wide variety of non-medical uses. In industry, it has been used as a chemical solvent. In laboratory research, it is often used as a cryopreservative for cultured cells. One of the properties of DMSO is that it is absorbed very rapidly through the skin and cell membranes, carrying along almost anything else (particularly low molecular weight molecules) dissolved in it that would not otherwise be able to cross those barriers. Intravenous and oral administration of DMSO allow it to penetrate rapidly into vascular and non- vascular tissues in the body (854). Its popular use among athletes, people with arthritis, and others have stemmed from claims that topical DMSO reduces pain, decreases swelling, and promotes healing of injured tissue. The FDA approved the use of bladder instillations of a 50% solution of DMSO (sold under the trade name "Rimso-50") to relieve symptoms of interstitial cystitis, a painful chronic bladder disorder (884). At present DMSO is commonly used in unconventional cancer treatments, particularly in "metabolic" treatments, such as those offered at several clinics in Tijuana and in the United States (e.g., at a hospital in Zion, Illinois and at clinics in Nevada, Pennsylvania, and California (289)). DMSO is often combined with laetrile and vitamin C, among other substances, and administered to patients intravenously. For example, the "Manner Cocktail," consisting of 10cc of DMSO, 25 grams of vitamin C, and 9 grams of laetrile dissolved in a 250cc bag of a 5% dextrose solution (574), is used to treat cancer patients at the Manner Clinic in Tijuana. DMSO has been studied in mainstream research for a variety of possible therapeutic uses. As a possible cytotoxic agent, DMSO has been studied in human tumor cell lines and in human tumor model systems in animals, and in each case, DMSO demonstrated no activity (243). As a possible tumor differentiating agent (942) (a substance that stimulates tumor cells to undergo development to mature, benign cells (827)), DMSO was found to be active in mouse and human leukemic cell cultures and in human solid tumor cell cultures (243,827), but it did not improve survival in animals implanted with human tumor cells (243); this lack of an effect in vivo is the basis for NCI classifying DMSO as a relatively weak differentiating agent, compared to other available agents (243). As a potential enhancer of the activity of known cytotoxic agents, DMSO was found to increase the activity of some of these agents in tumor-bearing rats (854). DMSO has been tested experimentally for antitumor effects, both in various tissue culture and in animal systems, and was found to be inactive. In a clinical study using DMSO in combination with the chemotherapeutic agent cyclophosphamide in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, DMSO did not enhance the effect of cyclophosphamide (319). One of the most widely available sources of information about the use of DMSO in unconventional cancer treatments is the booklet commonly available in health food stores, Dr. Donsbach Tells You What You Always Wanted to Know About DMSO (263). In this booklet, it is claimed that "while DMSO has not brought 'cure' for health problems, it has been and is now the source of comfort for millions of medical consumers." Donsbach states that DMSO acts by making cancer cells "behave more normally by bringing about a mitotic turnabout." He proposes its use as a treatment to relieve pain, to slow the growth of bacteria, viruses, and fungi, to control inflammation and swelling, to relieve burns and sprains, and to relieve the symptoms of arthritis, herpes, tuberculosis, sinusitis, and cancer. Another source in the popular literature discusses the use of DMSO in combination with conventional chemotherapeutic drugs (593). Mildred Miller, an advocate of DMSO use in cancer treatment (616), claims that intravenous DMSO "dissolves the protein shell surrounding the cancer cells and begins to restore the abnormal cell to normalcy" (615) and that it "stimulate[s] the body's own immune system, as well as altering the cancer cell, causing it to become mature or burn out" (617). Miller is associated with a clinic in Las Vegas that uses DMSO as one of its main components of cancer treatment. Topical application of DMSO has been associated with redness, itching, and inflammation of the skin and a garlic- like taste and odor on the breath. Intravenous administration of DMSO has been reported to cause transient hemolysis (breakdown of red blood cells), resulting in urinary excretion of hemoglobin (45,983). Several additional adverse effects of DMSO are mentioned in the Donsbach booklet (263), including "possible damaging effects to the liver, the kidneys, bloodforming organs, and the central nervous system"; and "headache, dizziness, nausea, and sedation." Toxic effects to the lens of the eye were reported in studies involving the use of DMSO in dogs, rabbits, and pigs, although no such effects have been noted in studies with human subjects (45). The safety of prolonged use of DMSO in humans has not been established.

SOURCE:http://www.quackwatch.com