5 ms·

About 40 years ago I boarded my horse with an old cowboy who used DMSO as a horse liniment. He had been using it for years any time one of his mounts was worked

About 40 years ago I boarded my horse with an old cowboy who used DMSO as a horse liniment. He had been using it for years any time one of his mounts was worked pretty hard or when someone brought a lame horse to him. He would rub the joints, calves, and thighs of the horse down good with DMSO for a few days and then they were good to go again. He also used it on his wife. He told me that she had type I diabetes and neuropathy as a result. Her feet were always cold from poor circulation. That was true until he happened to rub her feet one day after treating a horse. Her feet warmed up in minutes and became normal pink again. After that, he used it on her feet and legs since it improved circulation. You can say what you will about it being reactive and possibly not good for you but she was able to dance again and get back on her horse so it definitely does have some benefit. They did this for at least 30 years and both of them were past 75 years old when they passed away. Like another poster said, it is used as a carrier for some medications since it pulls them straight into the bloodstream. I don't think it's magic but I also don't think you'll suffer much using it even with bare hands. As far as lye is concerned, the sodium hydroxide in this paper, you can easily make that yourself with wood ash and water. It is pretty handy if you are tanning hides since the treatment of a raw hide with lye causes the hair to slip right off leaving a smooth skin ready for the next step.

Auracle 4y ago
DMSO also makes your breath smell like garlic after you’ve had it on your skin. I wouldn’t want to be around a horse that’s had a healthy dose, and I certainly wouldn’t love if my wife had to use it every day.
- doodlebugging 4y ago
  Yeah, so I've heard. Life is full of trade-offs and if I knew that it would help my wife I'd rub that shit all over her and buy lots of Peppo-mint Life Savers so she never had to do without.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  To fix such a serious issue OP is mentioning for your life companion? WTF is wrong with people? If you are married and will stay together till end, worse things will come along from both sides. Will you just ignore her then or tell her to not ruin your day with her petty issues? Btw garlic consumption and subsequent breath is fairly common in many cultures for millennia due to its very positive health effects, just not among snobbish posh ones. There are plenty of solutions to bad odor, easiest being along the line of "if you can't beat them join them" - if you eat even just a bit of raw garlic, nobody smells bad to you anymore.
  - Auracle 4y ago
    Oh come on - obviously I would deal with it if it was necessary for my wife's health/happiness. Don't jump to judgy conclusions over what was primarily a joke.
LinuxBender 4y ago
Are you certain it was DMSO and not DMSO2? I ask because quite a few ointments for horses have DMSO2/MSM. I use it on horses with horse specific formulas and on myself in a cream designed for humans called Penetrex.
- doodlebugging 4y ago
  I can not be 100% certain this far down the road what he used on his horses or his wife but at the time, he told me that it was DMSO. I don't know where he got it but he was well-connected in the horse world. He had a long career as a wrangler for Hollywood westerns after setting several records himself as a young cowboy in rodeo events as a bronc-buster, calf roper, header/heeler even setting one record in a rodeo at Madison Square Garden. He participated in founding the American Quarter Horse Association. He told me he had trained several actors over the years including a couple from the old TV series Rawhide who had never ridden a horse before that show. He knew Gene Autry, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and worked with them and other western movie stars at one time or another. He knew horses, mules, saddles and tack like the back of his hand and he understood cigars, whiskey, and women intimately as any real man did back then. My wife uses Penetrex here at home for sore muscles. She claims to get some benefit from it. I was not aware that there were two compounds, DMSO and DMSO2 but we definitely have Penetrex here at home. It is possible that the product he used back then was DMSO2 if it was widely used in the 60's through 80's in horse liniment. I actually had to look them up to get a feel for the differences between them. Thanks for asking.

Auracle 4y ago

DMSO also makes your breath smell like garlic after you’ve had it on your skin. I wouldn’t want to be around a horse that’s had a healthy dose, and I certainly wouldn’t love if my wife had to use it every day.

doodlebugging 4y ago
Yeah, so I've heard. Life is full of trade-offs and if I knew that it would help my wife I'd rub that shit all over her and buy lots of Peppo-mint Life Savers so she never had to do without.
saiya-jin 4y ago
To fix such a serious issue OP is mentioning for your life companion? WTF is wrong with people? If you are married and will stay together till end, worse things will come along from both sides. Will you just ignore her then or tell her to not ruin your day with her petty issues? Btw garlic consumption and subsequent breath is fairly common in many cultures for millennia due to its very positive health effects, just not among snobbish posh ones. There are plenty of solutions to bad odor, easiest being along the line of "if you can't beat them join them" - if you eat even just a bit of raw garlic, nobody smells bad to you anymore.
- Auracle 4y ago
  Oh come on - obviously I would deal with it if it was necessary for my wife's health/happiness. Don't jump to judgy conclusions over what was primarily a joke.

LinuxBender 4y ago

Are you certain it was DMSO and not DMSO2? I ask because quite a few ointments for horses have DMSO2/MSM. I use it on horses with horse specific formulas and on myself in a cream designed for humans called Penetrex.

doodlebugging 4y ago
I can not be 100% certain this far down the road what he used on his horses or his wife but at the time, he told me that it was DMSO. I don't know where he got it but he was well-connected in the horse world. He had a long career as a wrangler for Hollywood westerns after setting several records himself as a young cowboy in rodeo events as a bronc-buster, calf roper, header/heeler even setting one record in a rodeo at Madison Square Garden. He participated in founding the American Quarter Horse Association. He told me he had trained several actors over the years including a couple from the old TV series Rawhide who had never ridden a horse before that show. He knew Gene Autry, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, and worked with them and other western movie stars at one time or another. He knew horses, mules, saddles and tack like the back of his hand and he understood cigars, whiskey, and women intimately as any real man did back then. My wife uses Penetrex here at home for sore muscles. She claims to get some benefit from it. I was not aware that there were two compounds, DMSO and DMSO2 but we definitely have Penetrex here at home. It is possible that the product he used back then was DMSO2 if it was widely used in the 60's through 80's in horse liniment. I actually had to look them up to get a feel for the differences between them. Thanks for asking.