DMSO is a Miraculous Therapy for Neurological Diseases

A concise guide to the thousands of forgotten studies showing how one simple compound treats strokes, paralysis, neurodegeneration, and nerve pain

Sep 26, 2026

∙ Paid

Story at a Glance:

• DMSO is an inexpensive “umbrella remedy” whose combination of therapeutic properties (e.g., restoring circulation, reducing inflammation, and reactivating dormant cells) makes it uniquely suited to treating neurological disorders that otherwise lack effective options.

• Hundreds of studies and many reader reports show DMSO can dramatically improve strokes, brain bleeds, traumatic brain injuries, and spinal cord injuries (including permanent paralysis), with the best results occurring when it is given soon after the injury.

• Extensive data supports DMSO for neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, MS, and prion disease, along with cognitive impairment, psychiatric disorders, chronic stress, seizures, and Down syndrome.

• DMSO is one of the most effective treatments available for pain (e.g., neuropathic pain, spinal pain, headaches, and fibromyalgia) and peripheral nerve damage, and since the eyes and ears are also extensions of the nervous system, it frequently improves vision, hearing, and tinnitus.

• DMSO’s ability to treat so many seemingly unrelated neurological conditions suggests they share root causes conventional neurology does not recognize, which is a major reason so many of these diseases remain untreated.

• This article condenses a four-part DMSO neurology series (covering approximately 4,500 studies and 1,000 reader reports) into an accessible summary and concludes with practical guidance on sourcing, dosing, and condition-specific protocols.

Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is a simple, inexpensive compound found throughout nature whose remarkable properties allow it both to treat a wide range of illnesses and to facilitate the use of many different (FDA approved) medical therapies. Yet, it exists in a strange limbo: it is one of the most extensively studied and used medicinal compounds, but most mainstream sources insist there’s no evidence it works for anything beyond its single FDA-approved use, interstitial cystitis, despite the fact that physicians and scientists, seeing its promise, independently conducted tens of thousands of studies demonstrating its therapeutic utility and that DMSO, on the basis of that data, is widely used in foreign medical systems.

DMSO’s peculiar status results from the fact it cannot be profited off of (e.g., a twenty dollar bottle will last a user for months). Because of this, there has been no incentive within the medical field to secure a costly approval for it within the FDA’s “pay-to-play system.” Rather, the FDA went to war against DMSO for decades (despite immense public protest to legalize DMSO) and as a result, almost all of the approved DMSO preparations on the market are DMSO pharmaceutical combinations (as they can be patented and then marked up). Likewise, there was no incentive within the natural health field to market it as a supplement, which has resulted in it becoming mostly forgotten by the time a 1994 law took away the FDA’s ability to restrict natural supplements like DMSO.

I find this egregious, as DMSO is able to:
•Treat a variety of common conditions (e.g., pain and injuries) in a dramatically effective, cheaper, and most importantly safer manner than the existing therapeutic options.
•Treat a variety of challenging and tragic illnesses that have few or no treatment options, in many cases producing recoveries so dramatic they are regarded as “miraculous” or “impossible.”

Since many of DMSO’s most incredible effects are seen with neurological disorders (that often otherwise lack satisfactory treatment options), a significant portion of the DMSO literature base has focused on this area. So, over the last six months, in an effort to make this option available to people, I’ve tried to concisely summarize approximately 4,500 studies and 1,000 reader reports of DMSO’s utility for neurological conditions. Unfortunately, given how much information this was, despite my absolute best efforts to compress it, the four articles I wrote¹^,²^,³^,⁴ still totaled to 142,000 words. However, now that those four have been done (which I felt had to be done first as many of the claims I’ve made seem impossible within the conventional framework), it is possible to write a much shorter (and more accessible) summary of the DMSO’s uses in neurology which can link back to the more detailed pieces which provide all the corroborating references one might need before considering trying DMSO.

How DMSO Works

James Miller, MD: It is my impression, with no hard data, that ~80% of everything people see neurologists for goes away with DMSO. That is what my patients reflect back to me who choose to trial DMSO for their neurological problems.

DMSO’s unique ability to treat a very wide range of seemingly unrelated disorders makes it critical to understand how this happens, both because skeptical parties require mechanistic plausibility to accept that it can work, and because DMSO’s ability to treat so many challenging illnesses suggests whatever it does addresses the foundational causes of disease medicine, despite its best efforts, has not been able to identify. DMSO’s mechanisms, in turn, break down into three categories: the conventionally recognized ones (with wide support in the literature), the documented but overlooked ones, and the mostly-unrecognized “alternative” ones (which have some supporting literature) that I believe underlie many diseases.

Since many of DMSO’s therapeutic effects are uniquely tailored to the needs of the nervous system, in those four articles (which began the second draft of the DMSO series), I laid out extensive body of research demonstrating those therapeutic mechanisms. They are as follows:

Widely Recognized Mechanisms

Protecting cells from otherwise lethal stressors. DMSO made modern cryopreservation possible. The same protection extends to radiation, excitotoxins, heavy metals, nerve agents, heat, and loss of blood supply. It works partly by neutralizing the free radicals these stressors generate, stabilizing cell membranes, preventing the calcium influx that triggers cell death, and sustaining ATP production when mitochondria are compromised. CNS Neurons are among the most injury-sensitive and least regenerative cells in the body, so this is particularly valuable for the nervous system, particularly since many neurodegenerative disorders are caused by a continual source of neurotoxic stressors that gradually destroy nervous tissue (detailed here and here).
Neutralizing free radicals and inflammation. Chronic inflammation is one of the most common drivers of neurological disease, and in our experience DMSO is one of the most effective anti-inflammatories available. Beyond being one of the most potent known hydroxyl radical scavengers (e.g., there are 135,000 results on Google Scholar for “DMSO radical scavenger”¹), DMSO suppresses NF-κB—the master switch that turns on inflammatory cytokines (e.g., in one endotoxin model, it cut ICAM-1, TNF-α, and neutrophil infiltration by roughly 80%¹), reduces the adhesion molecules that allow white blood cells to plug vessel walls and infiltrate tissue, inhibits inflammatory prostaglandins, reduces edema, and restores the circulation whose absence allows inflammation to persist. Unlike steroids and other immunosuppressants, however, it modulates rather than shuts down the immune system (while also potentiating cortisol so lower steroid doses can be used) (detailed here and here).
Crossing the blood-brain barrier and carrying other agents with it. Within five minutes of skin application, DMSO reaches the bloodstream, and within an hour it has spread throughout the body (including into the bones), yet it does not accumulate, since 85% is excreted within 24 hours. The blood-brain barrier keeps most therapeutic agents out of the brain (often requiring very high doses so that some reaches it), but DMSO both crosses it and carries other agents across with it. This allows therapies to reach the central nervous system at much lower (and hence less toxic) doses than would otherwise be required (detailed here).
Relieving pain. DMSO reduces pain transmission, relaxes muscles, reduces swelling and inflammation (addressing key sources of pain), and potentiates local anesthetics—which is why pain reduction was DMSO’s most popular use from the start (detailed here).
Note: muscles compressing nerves contributes to many neurological issues.

Documented but Overlooked Mechanisms

Inhibiting blood clotting. Neurons are among the tissues most sensitive to losing their blood supply (often ceasing to function the moment it is interrupted), so even small clots can cause significant neurological damage. A large body of research shows DMSO counteracts clotting through several independent pathways at once. It inhibits platelet aggregation and activation, selectively inhibits COX-1 and thromboxane A₂, raises cAMP and cGMP, scavenges the free radicals that trigger platelet activation, suppresses tissue factor (the protein that initiates the clotting cascade), and activates the body's natural clot-dissolving system, allowing it to break down existing clots as well as prevent new ones (e.g., in rats with injured carotid arteries, IV DMSO virtually abolished clot formation¹). Because DMSO normalizes coagulation rather than forcefully blocking a single pathway, its bleeding risk is much lower than that of conventional blood thinners (detailed here).
Increasing circulation and reducing swelling. DMSO dilates blood vessels, stimulates lymphatic flow, and by neutralizing the free radicals that constrict vessels and impair nitric oxide, keeps them open under oxidative stress. It also acts as a targeted diuretic that reduces the swelling that compresses injured brain and spinal tissue (e.g., one veterinary review found it lowered pressure inside the skull faster than mannitol¹). Unlike conventional treatments for brain swelling, which often lower blood pressure and thereby reduce the brain’s blood supply, DMSO relieves the pressure while increasing blood flow to the brain (detailed here and here).
Note: many neurodegenerative diseases appear to stem in part from impaired venous and lymphatic drainage from the brain, which traps toxins and the misfolded proteins that accumulate in these diseases (e.g., surgically restoring that drainage has produced marked improvements in multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s). Since DMSO increases both venous and lymphatic drainage, it offers a non-invasive way to produce many of the same effects.
Clearing aged blood cells. IV DMSO causes osmotic hemolysis. As this selectively affects aged red blood cells (which happen to be prone to clumping), this hemolysis reduces blood viscosity and increases blood flow (e.g., one dog study showed a greater than 20% increase in cerebral blood flow following this hemolysis¹). A leading researcher, in turn, believed this explained the paradoxical observation that DMSO lowered hematocrit but raised cerebral blood flow (detailed here).
Increasing parasympathetic tone. DMSO inhibits acetylcholinesterase, the enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine (the primary transmitter of the parasympathetic nervous system). Many practitioners consider excessive sympathetic (fight-or-flight) activity with deficient parasympathetic (rest-and-repair) activity to be a root cause of chronic disease. That imbalance sustains chronic psychological stress and agitation, constricts blood vessels, reduces blood flow to the brain (and other parts of the body), impairs healing, and keeps neural circuits locked in dysfunctional states. By restoring parasympathetic tone, DMSO helps counterbalance this and normalize autonomic function (detailed here).
Blocking pain at its source and in the central nervous system. Beyond dampening pain signals, DMSO biophysically blocks the small nerve fibers that transmit chronic pain (leaving larger fibers untouched), blocks nerve ion channels much as local anesthetics do, and suppresses the NMDA receptors that drive central sensitization. Partly through scavenging free radicals, it also prevents the sensitization that often follows nerve injury. Finally, it strengthens the body’s own pain-inhibiting circuits and opioid signaling while producing its own opioid-independent pain relief (e.g., comparable to morphine but lasting three times as long¹), allowing it to address pain conditions other medications cannot touch (detailed here).
Repairing and rebuilding nerves. When nerve fibers are cut or crushed, their ruptured membranes must reseal quickly to prevent the cell from dying, and DMSO significantly enhances this resealing, even under conditions that normally impair it. It is also one of the most potent known promoters of microtubule assembly (the internal scaffolding nerves need to regrow—in one case lowering the threshold for it 8- to 10-fold¹), and drives stem cells to differentiate into neurons. This provides a mechanistic basis for the nerve and spinal cord regeneration repeatedly observed with it (detailed here and here).
Acting as a chemical chaperone. DMSO stabilizes proteins in their correct shape and dissolves misfolded aggregates such as amyloid, and breaks down the abnormal tissue of fibrotic contractile disorders (e.g., scleroderma, Dupuytren’s, and Peyronie’s¹^,²). As these protein aggregates play a key role in many neurodegenerative disorders, this mechanism likely plays a major part in DMSO’s ability to address these disorders (detailed here).

Unrecognized Mechanisms

Dispersing clumped blood. A large body of research, pioneered first by Western and later by Russian scientists, found that blood cells clumping together (”sludging”) and forming microclots that obstruct the smallest vessels is a root cause of many diseases (mirroring Chinese medicine’s concept of “blood stasis”). This clumping can be triggered by attractive forces (e.g., positive ions or pathologic proteins) or by a loss of the negative charge (zeta potential) that keeps blood cells apart. Infections, vaccines, and the COVID spike protein all cause blood cells to clump, while improving their dispersion frequently produces dramatic improvements across a wide range of ailments, so a significant portion of this newsletter has focused on this forgotten concept (detailed here). In addition to preventing while blood cells from plugging the smallest vessels, DMSO has effects similar to agents that restore zeta potential, but rather than acting electrically, it prevents microclotting by neutralizing the forces that draw blood cells together (e.g., in a 2009 study, heating rats’ cerebrospinal fluid caused escalating microclotting followed by brain damage, all of which DMSO prevented¹^,²^,³). Since the nervous system is exquisitely sensitive to impaired microcirculation, this likely underlies many of DMSO’s benefits for neurological disorders (detailed here).
Note: ozone is another marginalized low-cost therapy that a vast body of forgotten literature shows treats a broad range of diseases (many overlapping with DMSO’s). I am currently compiling that literature, and from what I’ve seen, ozone’s ability to reduce red blood cell adhesion appears to be one of the core mechanisms behind its broad therapeutic activity.
Restoring the blood flow the brain loses to chronic stress. A multi-decade Russian research program found that chronic stress drops cerebral blood flow from roughly 50 to under 30 ml/100g/min, setting off the degenerative changes seen in “stress” and psychiatric illness. Oral DMSO, particularly when combined with vitamin E, was the most effective intervention they tested (detailed here).
Resetting cellular structure. DMSO binds water more strongly than water binds to itself, and at cell membranes, it pulls water away from their surface. At lower concentrations, this tightens and stabilizes the membrane, while at higher concentrations it opens temporary pores. Both effects reverse as DMSO diffuses away, which is what allows it to carry substances across membranes without damaging them and to protect cells during freezing. A similar reversible process occurs within the cell’s internal skeleton (e.g., within 20 to 30 minutes, DMSO drives actin from the cytoplasm into the nucleus, and once DMSO diffuses out, the cell’s normal structure is restored within 1 to 2 hours¹^,²). Critically, when these structures reform, they appear to do so in a healthier configuration, with DMSO strengthening normal cellular architecture while breaking down pathological configurations (e.g., those in cancer cells). Many chronic conditions stem from pathological nerve circuits that can be “reset” with a short-acting local anesthetic, so this may explain why DMSO produces similar benefits (detailed here).
Reviving dormant cells. Injured tissue frequently enters a dormant “penumbra” state (resembling the cell danger response) where it stops functioning but has not yet died, and it can remain that way for years before either recovering or dying. Across the body, studies and patient reports indicate DMSO can reawaken these dormant cells (e.g., one leading DMSO researcher repeatedly found that animals with flatlined EEGs regained brain activity within about ten minutes of receiving DMSO¹). I suspect this results from a combination of DMSO restoring microcirculation (and clearing trapped cellular waste), sustaining cellular energy production, resetting cellular structure (and neuronal firing), and stabilizing microtubules, while also blunting the burst of free radicals that occurs when blood flow returns to oxygen-starved tissue. Neurons readily enter this state (e.g., the penumbra surrounding a stroke is a well-recognized concept in conventional neurology), so this property likely plays a key role in DMSO’s remarkable ability to treat neurological disorders and suddenly bring “long dead” tissue or lost neurological function back to life (detailed here).

With this context in mind, let’s now review what the data (and many corroborating reader reports) show DMSO does for a wide range of neurological disorders.
Note: for the majority of the conditions described below, I located and summarized at least 100 studies supporting the use of DMSO for them.

Strokes

Roughly 800,000 Americans have a stroke each year, and despite immense efforts to improve outcomes, strokes remain a leading cause of death and disability. This is largely because clot-busting tPA, the only approved drug for ischemic strokes, cannot be given until a CT scan rules out a brain bleed (so treatment is typically delayed by hours as brain tissue continues to die), reaches only a small fraction of patients within its window, meaningfully benefits about 13% of those who receive it,¹ and carries a 6.4% risk of a symptomatic brain bleed.¹ After a stroke, there is also essentially no therapy that restores lost function. DMSO sidesteps each of these problems, as it treats ischemic strokes, partially treats hemorrhagic ones, has no known risk of worsening a bleed, can be given at home or in an ambulance, and protects and revives the brain tissue a stroke would otherwise destroy. For this reason, one of my primary goals has been to raise awareness of DMSO for strokes and move toward emergency services (or patients at home) giving it immediately while the standard workup proceeds (since some bleeds require emergency neurosurgery).

Supporting this are hundreds of studies (most in animals, plus a large number where DMSO was combined with another agent), with the human ones including the following:

In a 2002 trial of 11 ischemic stroke patients, IV DMSO (with fructose diphosphate) left 63% “improved” or “markedly improved” at three months, versus 20% on standard care, and the benefit held even when treatment began well after the stroke.¹
In 100 Chilean patients with cerebrovascular disease, DMSO accelerated recovery from hemiplegia and aphasia.¹^,²
In 127 elderly patients with cerebrovascular disorders, DMSO iontophoresis produced clinical improvement in 86% by the fifth session (versus delayed improvement with standard care).¹
In 250 patients with cerebrovascular disease, DMSO iontophoresis (with vinpocetine) stabilized cerebral blood flow and improved blood supply to the large cerebral arteries.¹^,²
In three newborns with perinatal hypoxic brain injury, DMSO-vitamin E electrophoresis normalized muscle tone and reflexes faster than standard care.¹

Stanley Jacob (the physician who pioneered the research into DMSO) considered DMSO so important for strokes that he gave patients home stroke kits so they could inject it themselves the moment symptoms began, and a 1992 review concluded DMSO outperformed mannitol, dexamethasone, and barbiturates as a neuroprotectant for strokes.¹

Note: many profound stroke recoveries exist within the DMSO literature. For example, one author reported that a teacher found unconscious after a major stroke was treated with DMSO at home within minutes and was back teaching with no disability when school resumed after the Christmas break, while a woman who had been in a coma for three months after her stroke began responding a month after starting topical DMSO and three years later was living normally.¹

In monkeys, dogs, rats, gerbils, and mice (where unlike humans, DMSO can be tested in experimentally induced neurologic injury), DMSO consistently shrank or prevented the brain damage from blocked arteries, protected the surrounding “penumbra” tissue so it did not die, reduced brain swelling and blood-brain barrier breakdown, blocked the injury that occurs when blood flow returns, extended the window in which treatment could still work (e.g., to six hours in dogs), reduced mortality, and restored brain electrical activity, frequently outperforming the therapies it was compared against (e.g., hyperbaric oxygen, hemodilution, dexamethasone, and barbiturates). Hundreds of additional studies where DMSO was used to deliver another agent (e.g., curcumin or resveratrol) showed the same protective pattern.¹

Note: because DMSO is an effective and non-toxic solvent, it is routinely used in experiments to deliver other therapeutic agents. These studies typically assume DMSO is inert (so DMSO alone serves as the “control” and is rarely tested against saline). Collectively, these combination studies tend to yield results similar to those of DMSO alone, and when DMSO is occasionally tested against saline, it often independently produces the therapeutic effect attributed to the tested agent (something the authors sometimes acknowledged,¹^,² but in other cases could only be discerned from the study data¹). Beyond providing a separate body of evidence corroborating DMSO’s efficacy, I believe this also accounts for why many preclinical studies fail to replicate in clinical trials, as by that stage DMSO (which both potentiates the tested agent and is therapeutic in its own right) is typically no longer used. Replication failure is a major problem science has unsuccessfully contended with for decades.

I hence listed these combination studies in the four-part DMSO series, both for the corroboration they provide and to give additional options to individuals dealing with the conditions described here (as DMSO commonly works even better with another therapeutic agent). Within those studies, curcumin and resveratrol are by far the most frequent combinations (improving nearly every condition covered in the series), followed by melatonin, sulforaphane, quercetin, ginkgo biloba and its ginkgolides, tanshinone IIA, baicalin, the ginsenosides, paeoniflorin, astaxanthin, tetramethylpyrazine, triptolide, berberine, astragaloside IV, icariin, thymoquinone, carvacrol, luteolin, ursolic acid, EGCG, and fisetin (along with hundreds of other natural and pharmaceutical agents).

Many readers, in turn, have reported DMSO resolving a stroke on the way to the hospital, often leaving the ER unable to find evidence one had occurred (e.g., “The ER doc came in to tell me that I had not stroked, despite speech impairment and other signs. I told him I took DMSO”),¹^,² a medicinal chemist who drank DMSO as his stroke began credited it with preserving his ability to move and was back to full-time work six weeks later,¹ and many others have reported substantial recoveries from established strokes (e.g., a husband partially paralyzed by a stroke was playing guitar and singing while standing with one foot on a chair three months later).¹

Note: DMSO’s ability to protect the brain from losing its blood supply is mirrored in the heart (which is similarly sensitive to this). Across roughly 390 studies, DMSO reduced the size of heart attacks (e.g., from 50% to 21% in rats¹), essentially eliminated bleeding within the heart muscle after them (0 of 8 pigs versus 7 of 7 controls¹), raised the output of damaged hearts,¹ prevented scarring, and drove stem cells to become heart muscle,¹ while several readers reported using it to stop heart attacks¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵^,⁶^,⁷ (and others noticed large drops in blood pressure, in one case from 148/90 to 109/70 within 30 minutes of a small oral dose¹). Likewise, roughly 145 studies and 90 reader reports show DMSO’s circulatory effects treat conditions such as varicose veins, blood clots, Raynaud’s, and non-healing ulcers (e.g., Stanley Jacob found half of Raynaud’s patients had their symptoms eliminated,¹ one study of hundreds of diabetic ulcer patients reported a greater than 94% success rate,¹ and one reader who sprayed DMSO on her varicose veins nightly reported that “in 13 months they are entirely gone”).¹ These are discussed further here.

Brain Bleeds, Traumatic Brain Injuries, and Brain Swelling

Once the brain swells or bleeds, the rising pressure inside the skull (ICP) progressively crushes brain tissue, yet the existing options for lowering it are poor: mannitol can cause pressure to rebound above where it started, and barbiturates lower blood pressure and force patients into a coma. As such, there has been less-than-satisfactory progress over the decades in preventing the death and long-term disability that follow a severe head injury or brain bleed. DMSO lowers ICP within minutes without rebound while increasing blood flow to the brain, neutralizes the toxic iron released by spilled blood, and protects the neurons that would otherwise die in the hours and days after an injury. Hundreds of studies support this (including an unusually large number of human ones):

In 11 near-death patients with dangerously high ICP (from trauma, encephalitis, or brain bleeds) who had failed standard therapy (including barbiturates and mannitol), IV DMSO brought ICP down within minutes, and three who were expected to die recovered well.¹^,²
Of nine patients paralyzed after surgery for a ruptured aneurysm, all but one fully recovered, several within an hour (e.g., a 67-year-old woman who had lost her speech and the use of one side and had not responded to mannitol was fully alert and had regained her strength 45 minutes after DMSO, while one man’s paralysis returned when DMSO was stopped and resolved again once it was resumed).¹^,²
In 10 patients with severe closed head trauma (ICP of 40 to 127 mmHg), ICP began falling within 30 minutes, and by three months seven had minimal or no impairment.¹^,²^,³ An earlier report of 10 similar patients also found DMSO rapidly lowered ICP and improved their neurological outcomes.¹
In 10 patients with severe head injuries (Glasgow Coma Scale of 6 or below), seven survived, six without gross deficits.¹
In 12 TBI patients, DMSO rapidly reduced ICP in 21 of 23 treatments (with the two that failed also failing to respond to mannitol or furosemide).¹^,²
In 35 patients undergoing emergency cranial surgery, DMSO controlled ICP in 75% (versus 53% with standard therapy), including half of those who had already failed conventional treatment.¹
Of five children and adults with closed head injuries, a 1.5-year-old and a 7-year-old with high ICP both fully recovered after IV DMSO (while the three older and more severe cases did not survive).¹
A UC San Diego neurosurgeon credited DMSO with saving 11 of 30 head injury patients judged near death, calling the result “phenomenal,”¹ and his colleagues found DMSO was often effective when barbiturates had failed (with its main obstacle being that it partially dissolved the IV tubing of that era).¹
In a Ukrainian trial of 75 severe TBI patients, IV DMSO reduced the oxidative damage that drives secondary brain injury and accelerated neurological recovery (e.g., meningeal and autonomic symptoms improved in over 95% compared to standard therapy alone).¹

In monkeys, dogs, cats, rabbits, and rats, DMSO repeatedly outperformed the standard treatments for brain injuries. Across simulated hematomas, brain compression, gunshot wounds, head impacts, and brain bleeds, it rapidly lowered ICP and brain swelling, preserved blood flow and oxygen metabolism in the brain, prevented the surge of free radical damage that follows a bleed, reduced lesion size and neuronal death, improved memory and motor function, and dramatically increased survival (e.g., 14 of 15 monkeys with a simulated hematoma survived with DMSO versus 10 of 15 with urea and 0 of 10 with saline).¹

Readers have also shared that DMSO facilitated recoveries from aneurysms and brain bleeds (e.g., an 84-year-old with a grade 3 aneurysm),¹^,² including one who provided a corroborating CT scan,¹ and a physician who shared IV DMSO left his father “totally mentally restored in 4 hours” (he was discharged 36 hours later). Readers with concussions have also reported benefit,¹ though the data there is much thinner and results are likely to be more variable.

Note: it is critical that DMSO’s ability to resolve many life-threatening conditions (e.g., strokes and heart attacks) is not used as a justification to delay emergency care, as some of these will be due to causes that require urgent hospital intervention. Rather, DMSO’s best use is as a complementary therapy given while trying to reach the hospital (and hopefully having significantly recovered by the time you arrive).

Spinal Cord Injuries and Paralysis

Because, like the brain, the spinal cord does not regenerate, spinal cord injuries are considered permanent, and patients are told to prepare for a miserable life of paralysis along with the many severe complications that accompany it). Yet veterinarians have used IV DMSO for decades to get paralyzed dogs and horses back on their feet, with 1980s veterinary textbooks already listing standardized protocols.¹ In humans, the greatest benefit occurs when DMSO is given within 90 minutes of injury, but it can also produce significant rehabilitation years or even decades later. Hundres of studies and many reports support this:

•Stanley Jacob treated three patients who arrived paralyzed 5, 6, and 9 hours after injury (far beyond what was thought recoverable), and two regained the ability to walk.¹Jacob also found DMSO helped many of the complications paraplegics face (e.g., chronic intractable pain, bladder infections, bedsores, and poor temperature control).¹

•An engineer paralyzed for 12 years made remarkable improvements after starting DMSO.¹

•A college student with a C4-C5 fracture whom Jacob began treating nearly two years after his injury gradually regained sensation, limb movement, and hand function (until the FDA cut off his access), recovering enough to graduate.¹

Note: the only formal human study (a safety study of seven patients with spinal cord injuries) found no harm to the kidneys from IV DMSO.¹

Readers have also shared that DMSO helped them recover from spinal cord injuries. Two of the most dramatic cases I received were:

•While playing hockey, Jackson suffered the same C1/C2 injury that left Christopher Reeve paralyzed for life and was (accurately) told he would never breathe on his own or move his arms or legs again, so with nothing to lose his mother gave him DMSO in the ICU. His full recovery was so miraculousthat it was covered by many news stations and seen by millions online (who did not know DMSO was involved).

Note: further corroborating DMSO’s role, a faster improvement was seen on the side of his body Jackson’s mother could apply more DMSO to (due to him being on a vent).

•After being told she would become a paraplegic after severing her spinal cord, Rosa began DMSO five days after her injury and walked again (which Mary Beth Pfeiffer later verified by tracking her down in Ecuador).¹

In dogs, cats, rabbits, and rats given spinal cord contusions, compressions, cuts, or loss of blood supply, DMSO consistently prevented or reversed paralysis (e.g., in dogs given injuries that left every untreated animal permanently paraplegic, most DMSO-treated dogs walked again, and when the spinal cord’s blood supply was cut off, 11 of 12 DMSO-treated dogs fully recovered versus 1 of 12 controls). It also preserved nerve fibers and their myelin, reduced swelling, scarring, and free radical damage, produced visible nerve regrowth through the injury site (with coordinated leg movement returning in rats whose spinal cords had been cut), extended the time available for surgery, and outperformed methylprednisolone, naloxone, dexamethasone, and hyperbaric oxygen.¹
Note: like many other conditions, many DMSO combinations also treated spinal cord injuries,¹ including a randomized trial of dogs with naturally occurring disc-related spinal cord injuries, where DMSO alone produced the same improvement as the experimental drug it was supposed to be the vehicle for.¹

In veterinary practice, many similar recoveries have been reported (e.g., a dachshund paralyzed despite 14 days of steroids was walking the morning after a single IV dose,¹ and a comatose poodle with a neck fracture was walking again within two weeks¹), and multiple textbooks and reviews list DMSO among the best-supported treatments for neurological injuries in horses.¹^,²^,³

DMSO has also been used for other spinal cord conditions:

•Spasticity—In Russian patients with spasticity from a wide range of causes, DMSO iontophoresis reduced spasticity, pain, and reflex excitability and improved gait (with one patient progressing from needing a cane to walking independently).¹ A reader with vaccine-induced Stiff Person Syndrome likewise found it was the only thing that relieved 22 months of constant spasms (”I have it with me at all times”).¹

•Radiation damage—Topical DMSO (followed by acupuncture) halved the treatment duration for radiation-induced spinal cord damage while reducing paralysis and sensory deficits.¹^,²

•Arachnoiditis: In 42 patients with chronic arachnoiditis of the brain, DMSO iontophoresis significantly increased the number discharged with improvement,¹ and in another case, it resolved swelling of the optic nerve with no recurrence at three years.¹

Spinal Pain

Back and neck pain are among the leading causes of disability, yet they are notoriously difficult to treat, because the same symptoms can arise from dozens of different causes, so treatments targeting any single one (including costly surgeries) fail most patients. DMSO, in contrast, addresses many of those causes at once (e.g., tight muscles, inflamed joints, impaired circulation, bulging discs, and dysfunctional nerve circuits), which likely explains why spinal pain is one of the most common conditions readers report it transformed. Roughly 170 studies (mostly from Russia and Eastern Europe, where DMSO is a standard part of spinal care) and over 300 reader reports support this:

•In a Russian placebo-controlled trial of 68 patients, DMSO gel dropped pain from 7.46 to 2.58 (versus 7.13 to 4.73 with placebo) and improved disability scores by 60% (versus 35%).¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵

•In a 1968 trial of 38 patients with disc herniations, DMSO halved treatment duration.¹

•In a rehabilitation program of 320 patients, DMSO reduced pain to 0 to 2 in 89% (versus 73% of controls), with remission maintained in 80% when repeated annually.¹

•In four studies of 64 to 147 patients with cervical radiculopathy, DMSO compresses (as part of conservative treatment) succeeded in 69 to 84% of patients.¹^,²^,³^,⁴

•In cervical osteochondrosis, DMSO applications cut disability days 4.7-fold over two years,¹ fully resolved pain in 85% of 40 patients with accompanying shoulder pain (while also improving their sleep),¹ and when combined with therapeutic mud, improved 100% of patients after 5 to 6 sessions (versus 50% with mud alone after 10).¹

•In 55 patients with piriformis-related sciatica, a DMSO protocol reduced pain scores from 71.4 to 20.2 (versus 36.2 with standard therapy).¹

•In 63 machine operators with occupational lumbosacral radiculopathy, DMSO iontophoresis (with other therapies) halved pain scores.¹

•In well over a dozen Russian studies (including one of 221 patients where 98.2% showed a reduction on CT scans), DMSO-enhanced iontophoresis of a papaya enzyme shrank disc herniations by 2 to 7 mm in 75 to 98% of patients and allowed roughly 45% to avoid surgery, a protocol used in over 8,500 patients in Armenia alone.¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵^,⁶^,⁷^,⁸^,⁹

•In 115 patients treated with laser surgery for lumbar disc herniations, postoperative DMSO iontophoresis contributed to favorable outcomes in 86% at one year.¹

•Injecting a DMSO-containing mixture into damaged discs produced marked improvement in 57% of patients with severe chronic disc pain,¹ and in a comparison study, it outperformed a standard procedure (intradiscal electrothermal therapy), with no patients worsening versus 36% with the standard procedure.¹

•In 114 patients, aspirin dissolved in DMSO and delivered by ultrasound relieved pain in 78% after 5 to 6 procedures (versus 60% after 12 to 15 with the prior method).¹

•In 50 patients with spinal complications (e.g., disc herniations), a DMSO-based photodynamic protocol eliminated pain in 70% and was effective in 90%.¹

Hundreds of readers have reported relief from chronic back pain, sciatica, neck pain, spinal stenosis, degenerative discs, and failed back surgeries, often after years of failed treatments.¹ For example, a reader whose 12.5 mm bulging disc left her unable to stand without crying could stand after seven days, and seven months later imaging showed the disc had shrunk to 3 to 4 mm,¹^,² a reader with over 50 surgeries called DMSO “life changing,”¹ a 79-year-old bedridden for three weeks with sciatica was out of bed the day after her first application,¹ a 78-year-old family physician with severe kyphoscoliosis who had declined surgery is now more active than he was 40 years ago,¹ and a reader with ankylosing spondylitis saw their CRP (an inflammatory marker) fall from a chronic 9 to 12 to 3 after two months of DMSO.¹

Neurodegenerative Diseases

Despite decades of research and billions of dollars, there are no cures for the major neurodegenerative diseases, and existing drugs at best modestly slow their progression. As mentioned before, DMSO addresses the key drivers of these diseases, and collectively, roughly 500 studies support its use in neurodegenerative disorders.
Note: while oral and topical DMSO can help neurodegenerative disorders, like strokes, the most significant benefits are typically seen with IV DMSO.

ALS

ALS progressively kills the motor neurons controlling voluntary movement, typically causing suffocating death within two to five years, and the few approved drugs only modestly extend survival. For this reason, it immediately caught my attention when a colleague shared IV DMSO halted the progression of ALS (after which I learned Stanley Jacob had also successfully treated ALS with DMSO, including one patient who had “instant, overnight and slightly delayed wonders of therapy” before the patient’s doctor forbade further treatment)¹. Likewise, once I mentioned DMSO’s utility for ALS, a few patients with nothing to lose tried it and reported dramatic results including:

•Todd, an Air Force veteran with terminal ALS who’d just ordered a wheelchair when he started DMSO. His brain fog vanished, his breathing crises stopped within three days, his reflexes healed, and he eventually was dragging 340-lb beams across a road and now has reported being mostly recovered (e.g., he recently posted a video walking up and down a steep dirt hill carrying two large buckets of gravel for a retaining wall).

Note: Todd decided to discontinue DMSO (without telling anyone) so he could make a stronger case DMSO was helping him, after which his condition regressed (and then improved once he resumed).

•Carrie has bulbar ALS and was declining so quickly she stopped recording herself so her family would not have to rewatch it. With nothing to lose, she tried DMSO, and her speech, breathing, mobility, fine motor skills, and even her smile began returning. Her doctor was so impressed with her progress that he is now setting up a dedicated IV DMSO area for his patients. Like Todd, she has noticeably improved since this interview was filmed (e.g., she now drives most days, has much more energy, and her facial structure is visibly coming back).

•Another reader reported visible improvement in her father with ALS,¹ while one with cramping fasciculation syndrome (which mimics early ALS) who had reached the point of planning suicide found oral DMSO largely eliminated his cramping and allowed him to sleep through the night.¹

Since those videos came out, I learned through that network that other patients have been using IV DMSO with success for ALS, while conversely, one reader who tried it briefly couldn’t detect an improvement. The reports I’ve received, in turn, contradict our own limited experience (that IV DMSO only halts the progression of ALS rather than reversing it), and at this point I am not sure if the better results readers have reported are due to certain subsets of ALS being more responsive to DMSO, or higher doses being used (as we tend to err on the low end of dosing to avoid potential side effects).

Lastly, while very little formal research has been done in this area, in ALS mice, long-term oral DMSO increased survival and improved motor performance,¹ and in cells DMSO stabilizes SOD1, the protein whose misfolding drives many cases of ALS.¹

Note: the most realistic path for an FDA approval for a new indication of DMSO I’ve identified is IV DMSO for ALS, so if an ALS group attempts this, I will do my best to support their endeavor (as I believe it will open a lot of doors which will help a lot of people).

Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s results from the progressive loss of the brain’s dopamine-producing neurons, and while existing drugs temporarily replace the lost dopamine, none stop the disease from progressing.

In animals, DMSO repeatedly counteracted each of the neurotoxins used to model Parkinson’s (MPTP, rotenone, 6-OHDA, and the herbicide paraquat, one of the strongest known environmental risk factors for the disease), protecting the dopamine-producing neurons and the surrounding brain tissue, while dozens of natural and pharmaceutical agents delivered with DMSO reduced the toxic protein aggregation, inflammation, and motor deficits that characterize the disease.¹ In the laboratory, DMSO also reversed rotenone’s complete blockade of microtubule assembly.¹

Likewise, a case-control study (which linked many chemical exposures to Parkinson’s) found people with young-onset Parkinson’s were one tenth as likely to have been exposed to DMSO as healthy controls.¹

A few readers have reported some success with DMSO, including a research scientist with Parkinson’s who systematically tested oral DMSO and found that at his optimal dose, bradykinesia was eliminated, pain and dystonia fell by 80%, and stiffness by 50% (while higher doses made him worse),¹along with another who, after an IV of DMSO and mannitol, “bounced down a flight of stairs without using the handrails, cut his own food for a week after, spoke clearly, opened cab doors.”¹ Conversely, another reader who’s shared their Parkinson’s journey (and had a positive response to DMSO) shared that copious oral DMSO did not help them.

Given this (along with a cell study where concentrations far above normal use accelerated the clumping of alpha-synuclein, the protein that aggregates in Parkinson's—although this did not occur in mice¹) and our experience that IV DMSO typically halted (rather than reversed) Parkinson’s, my present assessment on this topic is:

•DMSO will help a subset of Parkinson’s patients but not all (so it is worth trying) but at the same time is less efficacious than what is say seen for ALS.

•Proper dosing and monitoring of symptomatic response to DMSO is critical for Parkinson’s (detailed here), as a potential for counterproductive overdosing exists.

•In many cases, oral DMSO may not suffice but IV DMSO may be able to help (as we’ve seen numerous cases of it halting but not reversing Parkinson’s).

•In the case of Parkinson’s it may be necessary to combine DMSO with another natural compound which has therapeutic activity in Parkinson’s (of which a few promising candidates have already been identified).

Note: since DMSO is one of many modalities I’ve used in practice (rather than the sole thing for over a dozen people a day for decades) and there are so many different conditions DMSO can be used on, there are many clinical situations readers enquire about (pertaining to themselves) that I (and colleagues) simply have no direct experience in and likewise, despite tens of thousands of published DMSO studies, there are many conditions no one has ever gotten around to studying DMSO’s utility in. For this reason, I have often provided the rationale (or evidence) for why something could work with DMSO, but avoided going further as I just don’t know. Likewise, since starting this series (where I am effectively pooling from the experiences of tens of thousands of DMSO users and clinicians), I have learned of many DMSO applications we either never got around to trying (or never even considered) that have successfully resolved challenging illnesses.

Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, and after decades of research focused almost exclusively on removing amyloid plaques, the costly amyloid drugs have largely failed (with significant side effects), while natural therapies that address the root causes of Alzheimer’s and have been shown to treat the illness have been marginalized (detailed here). DMSO, for example, addresses reduced blood flow, inflammation, and protein misfolding, and roughly 190 studies (detailed here) support its use for dementia. These include:

In 18 Moldovan patients with probable Alzheimer’s, DMSO produced improvements in memory, concentration, communication, and orientation that were evident at three months and especially pronounced at six,¹ and the leading DMSO neurology researcher likewise reported DMSO improved cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients treated for six months.¹
A 1980s Japanese review noted DMSO had been used to dissolve amyloid deposits in Alzheimer’s, with one report of partial improvement in motor function.¹
Across numerous animal models of Alzheimer’s (streptozotocin-treated rats, amyloid-injected rats, genetically engineered mice, and worms), DMSO improved learning and memory, reduced brain inflammation, increased the connections between neurons, delayed amyloid-induced paralysis (by 48 to 98% in worms), and extended lifespan, while in rats with chronically restricted blood flow to the brain (modeling vascular dementia), it prevented the memory loss that otherwise followed.¹ Over a hundred additional studies found agents delivered in DMSO did the same.¹

Likewise, numerous readers have reported dramatic improvements in dementia. For example, after two weeks of oral DMSO, a reader’s aunt with dementia who had not spoken in over a year began talking again,¹ while another’s 93-year-old mother with 15 years of dementia stopped having sundowners and regained her personality.¹

Multiple Sclerosis

MS causes the immune system to progressively destroy the myelin insulating the nerves of the brain and spinal cord, and existing therapies suppress the immune attack but do not restore lost myelin. Many studies support DMSO’s use here, including:

In a 1984 Russian study of 34 MS patients, DMSO produced “a very positive result,” particularly in relapsing-remitting MS.¹
In a study of 35 MS patients, DMSO gels were recommended for their chronic neuropathic and spasticity-related pain,¹ while in MS patients with trigeminal neuralgia, DMSO applications allowed carbamazepine to be reduced or stopped.¹
In the standard animal models of MS, a large number of agents delivered in DMSO improved clinical scores, reduced inflammation, and promoted remyelination.¹ In cell studies, DMSO drives the production of the cells that make myelin¹^,² and inhibits the challenging clotting triggered by myelin debris.¹

DMSO authors have also reported successes, including:

Stanley Jacob gave oral DMSO to a 29-year-old woman paralyzed by MS, and she walked again (”Her improvement was dramatic, as dramatic as any benefit I have ever seen”). Six years later she was still walking, driving, and caring for her family.¹
A California woman confined to bed in the fetal position and expected to die regained leg movement and the ability to feed herself over a year of DMSO.¹

Readers with MS have also reported benefit. For example, one reader’s wife, who had not had a pain-free day in the year and a half since developing MS-related trigeminal neuralgia, saw her pain drop 90% after testing 70% DMSO cream on a small spot of her face, and after applying it across the trigeminal area the next morning, was “99.9%” pain-free (with the pain not returning after three days without it).¹ Two readers likewise found DMSO stopped their “MS hugs” (the painful band-like squeezing around the torso), one of whom had previously “just had to endure them or go to the hospital for morphine,”¹^,² while a reader diagnosed with MS 34 years ago who now takes daily DMSO each morning has since stopped every pharmaceutical drug (including over-the-counter NSAIDs) and feels “fabulous,”¹ and another who has used it for a year for MS alongside fibromyalgia and CRPS called it “a godsend.”¹

Prion Disease (CJD) and Other Protein Misfolding Diseases

A variety of fatal neurological diseases result from misfolded proteins, and since DMSO is one of the best-known chemical chaperones, many studies of these diseases have found benefit from DMSO alone or in combination with another agent. For example:

In cells modeling Huntington’s disease, DMSO partially prevented cell death, increased cell viability, decreased aggregated huntingtin protein, and increased its soluble (non-toxic) form.¹
In prion-infected hamsters, DMSO prolonged survival and increased the urinary clearance of prion protein, and DMSO-treated prion aggregates had less than 1% of the infectivity of untreated ones.¹
In Niemann-Pick disease type C (a fatal genetic disease of childhood), oral DMSO reduced seizures, improved EEGs, and shrank the enlarged liver and spleen in Japanese patients,¹ including an 8-year-old girl whose seizures decreased enough to taper her medication and whose brain atrophy stopped progressing over two years of treatment.¹ In mice with the disease, DMSO also extended survival and delayed neurological symptoms.¹

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the most common human prion disease, is universally fatal and has no treatment, making it quite notable that one reader successfully treated her cousin with advanced (confirmed) CJD, making him, to the best of my knowledge, the only person who has ever recovered from it:

Note: this nurse requested that her face be blurred out, but we have confirmed in numerous (unblurred) communications with her she is who she claims to be.

Cognitive Impairment, Brain Fog, and Memory

The same processes that eventually cause dementia (e.g., poor blood flow, inflammation, and cells trapped in a dormant state) first cause cognitive impairment and brain fog, which conventional medicine has essentially no treatment for. Many studies support DMSO’s use here including:

In 104 elderly adults with organic brain disease (from strokes, head injuries, or degenerative conditions), DMSO combinations produced “a highly favorable effect on the psychic and somatic functions of senile patients.”¹^,²
In 100 Chilean patients with cerebrovascular disease, DMSO produced favorable changes in wellbeing, agility, mood, sleep, and speech.¹^,²
In 127 elderly patients with cerebrovascular disorders, DMSO iontophoresis improved memory, hearing, dizziness, sleep, and cognition in 86% by the fifth session.¹
In 154 patients undergoing surgery to restore blood flow to an acutely blocked leg artery, IV DMSO before the blood flow was restored resulted in milder cognitive issues afterwards (along with less kidney and heart-lung dysfunction).¹
In animals with chronically reduced blood flow to the brain, damaged cerebellums, or exposure to brain-damaging drugs, DMSO prevented or reversed the resulting memory loss and neuronal damage¹ (e.g., improving memory by 54% in rats with blocked carotid arteries¹^,²), and a large body of combination studies showed agents delivered in DMSO counteracted the cognitive damage caused by anesthesia (a well-recognized trigger of dementia), sleep deprivation, diabetes, sepsis, epilepsy, and chronic pain.¹

Many readers have reported similar benefits. For example, a family physician diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment by Mass General Neurology reported that after adding oral DMSO (alongside other lifestyle changes), “my memory is now better than it was decades ago.”¹Likewise, readers have reported DMSO clearing brain fog from anesthesia (within a week of starting it after hip surgery),¹ COVID vaccines (often with topical application to the neck),¹^,²^,³^,⁴ long COVID,¹^,² statins,¹ zolpidem,¹ fluoroquinolones,¹ chronic fatigue syndrome,¹^,² and TBIs,¹ along with a variety of memory improvements (”Memory is insanely good now”),¹ all of which is cataloged here.

Psychiatric Disorders, Chronic Stress, and Sleep

Psychiatry’s drugs manage symptoms rather than treat the underlying illness (often requiring lifelong use) and carry significant side effects. However, a great deal of evidence suggests many psychiatric conditions have a physical basis in the brain, and DMSO’s effects on circulation and inflammation mirror therapies that frequently improve these conditions. For example:

At a Peruvian psychiatric hospital, 42 patients were taken off their medications and given DMSO injections. All 14 acute schizophrenics improved rapidly and dramatically and were discharged within 45 days without recurrence, manic patients rapidly calmed, alcoholic psychoses resolved, and patients with OCD and severe anxiety also responded well (with the authors noting DMSO worked without the sedation of conventional tranquilizers).¹
In 17 patients with treatment-resistant depression lasting 5 to 20 years, adding oral DMSO to their antidepressants resolved the depression in 82.3%, which persisted through one to four years of follow-up.¹
In Chile, a DMSO amino acid formulation was used to treat mood and anxiety disorders, and in elderly patients treated with it for cognitive decline, mood shifted from depressed to cheerful.¹^,²
In 210 women with chronic gum disease, a DMSO treatment resolved the gum disease and lowered their anxiety.¹
Russian reviews have noted DMSO can be used for psychiatric disorders and that injected DMSO calms psychotic patients.¹
As mentioned above, a multi-decade Russian research program found chronic stress reduces blood flow to the brain, triggering the brain damage seen in psychiatric illness, and that DMSO was the most effective intervention they found (with their results subsequently beginning to be replicated in clinical trials at the Moscow Medical Academy).¹^,²^,³^,⁴ In their animal work, DMSO given before chronic stress completely prevented stress-induced ulcers, anxiety behaviors, and blood pressure disturbances, while dozens of other animal studies found agents delivered in DMSO reversed depression, anxiety, PTSD, and psychosis across the standard models.¹

Although DMSO is not a sleeping pill (and in animal studies had minimal effect on sleep at normal doses), dozens of readers have reported it transformed their sleep by resolving the pain, restless legs, breathing problems, or neurological issues that had kept them awake (in some cases after years of being suicidal from sleep deprivation).¹ This mirrors human studies where sleep improved as DMSO resolved knee arthritis¹ or neck and shoulder pain.¹ Many readers also independently noticed their dreams became far more vivid or lucid.¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵

Seizures, Encephalitis, Myasthenia Gravis, and Movement Disorders

Seizures: Many studies have evaluated DMSO for seizures, collectively showing a biphasic effect (therapeutic doses suppress seizures while very high doses can provoke them). In Niemann-Pick patients, oral DMSO reduced seizure frequency and improved EEGs,¹ veterinarians use IV DMSO in seizing horses and foals,¹^,² and in animals, dozens of agents delivered in DMSO reduced seizures and the brain damage that follows them.¹ One reader shared, “I’m not going every three days to emergency with seizures” (linked to the COVID booster).¹

Encephalitis: DMSO has also been repeatedly evaluated for brain inflammation from infections and other causes. In humans, DMSO has been used to treat viral meningitis¹^,² and to enhance bacterial meningitis treatment,¹^,² while in horses it has been used for herpes and West Nile encephalitis.¹^,² In animals, agents delivered in DMSO protected against a variety of lethal viral and parasitic brain infections and sepsis-induced brain injury.¹ One reader who was sent home from the ER with viral meningitis (”there’s nothing we can do”) applied DMSO to the base of the skull and was “healed” within 24 hours.¹

Myasthenia gravis: In 1980, researchers accidentally discovered that the DMSO they were using as a vehicle was independently lowering acetylcholine receptor antibodies that cause MG (by 52% in rats, persisting six weeks after treatment stopped),¹ and DMSO also fully restored nerve-muscle function in a laboratory model of the disease.¹ No human trial was ever done, but readers with generalized MG have reported no myasthenic crises since starting DMSO in 2022, with one describing it as “better than the pyridostigmine I used to take 6x/day,”¹ another going from 30 prescription medications to nearly none,¹^,² and a third reporting “my swallowing and speaking goes back to normal.”¹

Hydrocephalus: One reader’s brother, whose neurologists had given him a few years to live, was treated by Stanley Jacob with DMSO, stabilized in a way his doctors said was “making medical history,” and lived 30 more years.¹

Movement disorders: A single DMSO injection during pregnancy completely prevented a neurological ataxia in lambs (0% versus 60% of controls).¹ Readers have reported improvements in essential tremors (e.g., an 80-year-old regained the ability to write within a month),¹^,² vaccine-induced tremors,¹ and restless legs (in some cases after decades of medication).¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵^,⁶^,⁷

Down Syndrome and Developmental Disorders

When I first dove into the DMSO literature, the claim I had the most difficulty believing was that it significantly improved Down syndrome, as I, like most doctors, assumed nothing could be done for a genetic condition. However, many studies and Congressional testimony corroborate it, including:

•In Oregon, 67 children with Down syndrome showed dose-dependent developmental improvements on DMSO with no side effects.¹

•In a 1976 Chilean study of 15 young children with Down syndrome, DMSO with amino acids raised motor scores from 56 to 72 and social scores from 40 to 64 over a year (while controls remained unchanged), along with physical improvements such as reduced tongue enlargement and better muscle tone,¹ and a separate Chilean study of 55 children also found large developmental gains.¹

•In an Argentinian study, 18 children with Down syndrome given DMSO and amino acids⬖ showed statistically significant acceleration of their development (particularly language) compared to 91 controls.¹

•In a 1969 study of 44 severely developmentally delayed children, over 70% responded favorably, with gains in IQ, reading, writing, coordination, and behavior,¹ while in another 1969 study of 30 learning-disabled children with language disorders, the same formula produced gains in speech, initiative, self-care, reading, and writing.¹ In Argentina, 13 developmentally disabled children (without Down syndrome) also improved with it.¹

•At a 1980 Congressional hearing, testimony described Melody Clark, predicted never to progress mentally beyond age six, who after seven years on DMSO functioned at a second-grade level (with her dentist also testifying her palate, jaw, and tongue had normalized).¹ Likewise, Billy King, who had the mental capacity of a ten-month-old at 14, reached that of a seven-year-old two years later and eventually held a job in a bookstore,¹ while Bronwyn Nash, frail and unable to gain weight at 10 months, began developing steadily once started on DMSO.¹

After I published this data, the parents of a two-year-old with Down syndrome reported she began sleeping better, became more verbal, and started crawling after starting DMSO (”It’s almost like she’s not even the same kid she was two weeks ago”).¹^,²

Finally, the German DMSO community has since refined these amino acid formulations and reports significant benefit for learning disabilities and developmental delays.¹ Additionally, while no direct data exists for autism, numerous mouse studies found agents delivered in DMSO improved autism-like behaviors,¹ one reader shared DMSO was a key part of a protocol that treated her son’s autism,¹ and one reader shared that topical DMSO relaxes her daughter’s tight muscles from cerebral palsy.¹

Peripheral Nerve Damage and Neuropathies

Peripheral nerves can regenerate, but slowly (about 1 mm per day) and often incompletely, while the treatments for neuropathy and nerve pain (e.g., gabapentin, Lyrica, or opioids) at best partially relieve symptoms and carry significant side effects. DMSO both regenerates damaged nerves and blocks the small fibers that transmit chronic pain, and hundreds of studies and reader reports support its use for these conditions.

Nerve regeneration: Many studies have evaluated DMSO’s effects on nerve repair. In animals with cut, crushed, or compressed nerves, DMSO consistently improved regeneration, increasing the number and myelination of regrown nerve fibers, restoring nerve conduction (e.g., increasing nerve signal strength by 935% in rats with severed sciatic nerves¹^,²), reducing scarring, improving walking and sensation, and, when used to bridge nerve gaps, outperforming autografts (the surgical gold standard). It even induced limb regeneration in adult frogs (which normally cannot regrow limbs).¹

Readers have also reported numerous remarkable peripheral nerve recoveries. For example:

•Rebecca’s leg was crushed in a car accident ten years ago. Surgeons saved it, but the tissue turned gray and she lost all feeling in it, and nothing helped for a decade. After starting DMSO, blood flow visibly returned to the tissue and sensation began coming back.¹

•A reader’s husband had a leg muscle that was dying from a compressed nerve, pain that painkillers did not touch (to the point he would cry outside each night), and a drop foot his neurosurgeon considered incurable as the muscle was too far gone. Within five minutes of DMSO going on his leg, half the pain was gone, and after eight weeks, the dead muscle began growing back (which then made it possible for the flabbergasted surgeon to perform the nerve release surgery that got him walking without a brace).¹

•A reader whose feet had been paralyzed for 13 years started taking oral DMSO daily and after 3 months was able to walk without braces.¹

Complex regional pain syndrome: CRPS is one of the most debilitating pain conditions and has no cure, yet roughly 50 studies (including several randomized trials) have found topical DMSO effective, particularly early in the disease (giving DMSO have Level 1 evidence for the condition). These include:

•A 1985 study reported an approximately 90% recovery rate when treatment began early.¹

•In an RCT of 31 patients, DMSO cream reduced the median disease score from 5 to 0 (versus 4 to 2 with placebo).¹

•In 37 patients, pain scores dropped from 5.3 to 0.9.¹

•In a 146-patient RCT, roughly 80% improved.¹

•In a 145-patient comparison, DMSO outperformed N-acetylcysteine and was more cost-effective.¹^,²

•In 29 patients, DMSO reduced pain by 3.09 points over a year, with 89.7% reporting quality-of-life improvements.¹

•In 8 patients, a DMSO-ambroxol cream improved pain in 6, often within 30 minutes to 2 hours.¹

As a result, German, Dutch, and Russian guidelines recommend 50% DMSO cream for acute CRPS,¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵ and readers have reported success, with one who has used it daily for 18 years calling it “a freaking Miracle.”¹

Note: CRPS closely matches the German concept of an interference field (which neural therapy treats by injections of a local anesthetic like lidocaine, which resets the dysfunctional nerves), making it notable that CRPS responds not only to neural therapy but also DMSO (which likewise provides a neurological reset).

Trigeminal neuralgia: This is one of the most severe pain conditions known, and it frequently stops responding to treatment but does respond to DMSO. For example, in 35 patients whose trigeminal neuralgia had lasted over a year, 26 improved with topical DMSO and 13 fully recovered,¹ in MS patients DMSO allowed carbamazepine to be reduced or stopped,¹ and in 154 patients with various conditions (including trigeminal neuralgia and facial neuritis), a DMSO iontophoresis protocol produced marked improvement in 93%.¹ Numerous readers have reported significant success with trigeminal neuralgia,¹ including one reader’s mother, who had been in near-constant pain for years, was pain-free by the evening of her first application and had no flareup over the following three weeks.¹

Shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia: Post-herpetic neuralgia is one of the most debilitating complications of shingles and frequently does not respond to standard treatments. However, many studies have shown it responds to DMSO:

•A 1992 RCT of 171 patients found an antiviral in DMSO was superior to acyclovir at preventing it,¹ and a 1974 RCT of 118 patients found it significantly improved post-herpetic neuralgia outcomes.¹

•In facial shingles (the form most likely to cause post-herpetic neuralgia), the combination cut the median duration of pain to 13 days (versus 1 to 3 months), with pain persisting beyond 30 days in 30% versus 82%.¹^,²

•For established cases, 6 of 9 patients in one series had a complete remission,¹ a German study reported positive results in 10 of 11 cases,¹ and 18 of 22 in another series had a good response.¹^,²

•In 25 patients, a DMSO combination relieved post-herpetic neuralgia pain within roughly 10 minutes.¹

•At the 1980 Congressional hearing, a Cleveland Clinic physician testified that when DMSO was applied during acute shingles, they never saw post-herpetic neuralgia follow.¹

Facial nerve palsy: In a controlled study of 65 Bell’s palsy patients, DMSO compresses significantly increased the cure rate and shortened recovery,¹ DMSO is part of the standard Russian protocols for facial nerve palsy,¹ and numerous readers have shared it resolved Bell’s palsy, including a reader with Ramsay Hunt syndrome who saw facial movement return within a week.¹

Compression neuropathies: DMSO is recommended in Russian clinical guidelines for tunnel syndromes such as carpal tunnel.¹^,²^,³^,⁴ In diabetics with carpal and cubital tunnel syndromes, DMSO applications improved 83% of affected hands (most modestly) without raising blood sugar (as steroid injections do),¹ in 11 patients with radial nerve compression it reduced pain by 69% and restored wrist extension in 73%,¹ and in patients with traumatic nerve injuries, DMSO with combined B vitamins produced EMG-confirmed recovery in all of them.¹ Over 50 readers have also reported carpal tunnel and related compression improvements (e.g., for sciatica).¹

Peripheral neuropathy: In one study of patients with peripheral neuritis and neuralgia, DMSO produced a full remission in 66% and a partial one in 22%,¹ while in workers with vibration disease (nerve and circulatory damage from power tools), DMSO compresses improved most cases and reduced or eliminated the need for medications.¹^,² In animal models of diabetic and chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, many agents delivered in DMSO restored nerve function.¹ Over 100 readers have reported neuropathy from diabetes, chemotherapy, vaccines, and unknown causes responding to DMSO. For example, a diabetic who had lost about 80% of the feeling below his knees regained it to about 85%,¹ a husband’s feet that had been “basically numb” for nine years regained feeling after a few applications,¹^,² a Shingrix-induced demyelinating neuropathy’s foot spasms stopped the first night,¹^,² and an 85-year-old’s “blackish blue” toes returned to normal color with feeling returning to her heels.¹

Chronic Pain

Pain was DMSO’s most popular use from the start and remains the most common testimonial I receive. My best estimate from well over a thousand pain reports is that 80 to 90% of people who try DMSO for pain notice a meaningful improvement (which matches what early DMSO researchers observed).

Neuropathic pain: Neuropathic pain (e.g., burning, shooting, or electric pain from damaged nerves) is one of the most difficult types of pain to treat. Hundreds of studies have shown how DMSO addresses it (along with many where DMSO was used to deliver another pain-relieving agent in animal models of nerve injury). DMSO produces pain relief comparable to morphine but lasting roughly three times as long (independent of the opioid system),¹^,²^,³^,⁴ selectively blocks the small nerve fibers that transmit chronic pain, dampens the central sensitization that makes pain chronic, and potentiates local anesthetics and opioids.¹Studies include:

•In 21 patients with acute pancreatitis, rectal DMSO completely relieved pain within 12 hours in 57% (versus 17% of controls) and within 24 hours in all of them.¹^,²

•Adding DMSO to an opioid (pethidine) in acute pancreatitis likewise significantly enhanced pain relief.¹

•During kidney stone lithotripsy, topical DMSO with lidocaine outperformed a standard anesthetic cream.¹

•DMSO with an anesthetic eliminated the need for painful needle anesthesia before eardrum procedures in 164 cases.¹^,²

Many readers have likewise have reported it resolving phantom limb pain,¹^,²^,³ nerve pain that persisted for years after surgery (e.g., a reader who had lost all feeling in her armpit after breast cancer surgery regained it after four applications),¹ and burning, shooting, or electrical nerve pain from many other causes (e.g., an aircraft mechanic with pain “like an electrical shock on fire” in his hand had it resolve after a single application).¹

Headaches and migraines: Many studies and reader reports show DMSO helps headaches, with tension, sinus, and neck-related headaches responding most consistently (whereas migraines respond more variably and best when DMSO is used early). Research includes:

•Stanley Jacob found over 75% of 59 headache patients responded to topical DMSO, including 13 of 17 with arthritis-triggered headaches and 4 of 5 with sinus headaches.¹

•In 10 patients with headaches from various causes, DMSO helped all of them, with relief within 1 minute to 3 hours,¹^,² while another study found DMSO relaxed the neck muscles within 60 minutes and relieved the accompanying tension headaches.¹

•In 190 patients, topical DMSO produced good or excellent results for many types of headache and neck pain (best in tension, post-traumatic, disc, and sinus-related cases).¹

•In 15 tinnitus patients who also had headaches, DMSO completely resolved the headaches in 7.¹

•In 120 patients with migraines and neck-related headaches, a treatment protocol including DMSO applications cut migraine frequency by up to 50%.¹^,²

•DMSO applications were also effective in 105 children with headaches and neck spine disorders.¹

Reader reports include one with chronic migraines since age seven who found DMSO at the onset of aura made it “disappear and dissolve,”¹ a reader’s husband with migraines two to three times a week for 30 years had only one in 45 days after starting DMSO,¹ and a physician reader used it to cure a colleague whose headaches “none of the neurologists could fix.”¹

Fibromyalgia: Fibromyalgia has few effective treatments. Stanley Jacob reported 70% of his fibromyalgia patients benefited,¹ a Russian study found a DMSO protocol normalized its dysfunctions,¹ and over a dozen readers have reported DMSO eliminating or greatly reducing their pain (e.g., one became pain-free for the first time in 25 years).¹^,²^,³^,⁴^,⁵ However, since fibromyalgia patients are frequently sensitive to treatment, they often need to start at low doses.

Sensory Organs

The eyes and ears are also extensions of the nervous system (e.g., the retina develops as an outgrowth of the brain, and hearing depends on delicate sensory cells and the nerve connecting them to it). Their exceptionally high metabolic demands make them particularly vulnerable to impaired microcirculation, so DMSO’s ability to restore blood flow, revive dormant cells, and dissolve protein aggregates frequently restores their function as well (which is extensively detailed in articles separate from the neurological series¹^,²).

DMSO concentrates in the cornea (reaching 2 to 4 times its blood level),¹ which likely explains why early DMSO patients so often noticed their vision improving while it was being used for something else. This led to studies such as one where, of 50 patients with retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration given DMSO eye drops, 22 had improved visual acuity and only 2 continued to worsen¹ (although a follow-up study could not confirm a benefit for retinitis pigmentosa),¹ while Stanley Jacob documented a series of long-blind patients regaining sight (e.g., a man blinded for over 30 years by a dynamite explosion began seeing flashes of light).¹ Readers have in turn reported DMSO improving most standard eye conditions (e.g., floaters, cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, dry eyes, and nearsightedness), often after nothing else had worked. One report provides a particularly striking example of how DMSO restores nervous system tissue, where Murray, a 75-year-old who had been blind in one eye since birth, began using DMSO for his sinuses and after a couple of months could see colors and detail in that eye for the first time in his life.¹

Likewise, a nurse who had been left seeing only shadows in her right eye after a fall fractured her orbit five and a half years earlier began seeing light in it after eight months of using DMSO on her eyes (with the eye also starting to turn back toward center), while the vision in her other eye improved and many of its floaters cleared.

Note: readers frequently ask if DMSO can be safely applied if one has IOLs from a cataract surgery. The American Academy of Ophthalmology has reported there is no evidence of (presumably systemic) applications of DMSO causing issues for IOLs,¹ while the German community (and ophthalmologists there) have found low dose DMSO applied to the eyes does not cause issues. At higher doses, issues may occur (depending upon the material the lens was made from), but the actual degree of risk remains unknown.

The ears show a similar pattern. In 15 patients with tinnitus of at least six months that they had been unable to adapt to, a month of a DMSO spray (with other agents) improved all of them, with the benefit lasting at least a year and some also regaining hearing on audiometry,¹ a New York City clinic reported most of its tinnitus patients were permanently cured within a month,¹ and in air travelers whose ears could not equalize pressure, nasal DMSO resolved 75% of cases.¹ A few studies also report success treating hearing loss with DMSO, but these were typically either case reports of specific ailments or used combinations rather than DMSO alone.¹

Readers have reported the same for tinnitus (e.g., 24/7 tinnitus of over 20 years almost completely gone after two weeks)¹ and also for hearing loss, which I believe often stems from impaired circulation to the ear. For example, sudden hearing loss in both ears reversed after one reader applied DMSO gel behind the ears (instead of the steroids their ENT offered),¹ another reader’s husband had to have his hearing aids recalibrated twice as his hearing kept improving with DMSO ear drops,¹ a woman with 14 years of hearing loss reported a serious improvement after six weeks of DMSO in her ears,¹ and 35 years of Eustachian tube dysfunction cleared within a week of nasal DMSO (restoring stereo hearing).¹

Note: since tinnitus is such a common challenge, successful DMSO cases inspired Pierre Kory’s practice to begin a clinical trial (which has thus far been successful). From all the reports I’ve received, DMSO seems to help about 50% of tinnitus cases, with the failures, I believe, being due to tinnitus having many different causes (which vary in their responsiveness to DMSO), many people using suboptimal applications of DMSO, and certain causes of tinnitus often requiring DMSO combinations rather than DMSO alone.

Lastly, there is also a bit of data on DMSO’s uses for the nose and tongue (e.g., it was found to treat burning tongue syndrome,¹ the German DMSO community identified one DMSO combination frequently restores lost smell and a few readers have reported DMSO alone may have restored their smell or taste).
Note: like other parts of the nervous system, DMSO was also found to safely facilitate the delivery of compounds to the taste bud sensory cells.¹

Rethinking Neurological Disease

There is a longstanding joke in medicine that neurologists are excellent at diagnosing diseases but not at treating them. Much of this stems from neurological diseases being defined by where the damage occurs and what it looks like rather than by what caused it, so once the diagnosis is made, there is often little to offer besides managing symptoms and monitoring the decline.

DMSO’s ability to help such a wide range of seemingly unrelated neurological conditions argues that many of them share common root causes, and that those causes are ones conventional neurology neither tests for nor treats (e.g., impaired microcirculation, dormant cells that have stopped functioning but not yet died, protein aggregation, excessive sympathetic tone, and dysfunctional nerve circuits). Because these causes go unrecognized, the diseases they produce are typically labeled “idiopathic,” “degenerative,” or “incurable,” and as a result, a vast number of patients are never offered anything that addresses why they became ill. Recognizing them, in contrast, opens the door to treating many conditions medicine has long considered hopeless.

Fortunately, one of DMSO’s most important characteristics is that patients do not need to wait for the medical system to change its paradigm to benefit from it, as DMSO is inexpensive, widely available, and can be used at home by anyone willing to learn how to use it. This is also critical for changing that paradigm, as the one pressure medicine reliably responds to is patients shifting their spending towards a superior alternative.

As such, in the remainder of this article, I will provide:

•Practical guidance on sourcing each grade of DMSO (including what is needed for IVs) and dosing it topically, orally, and intravenously.
•Emergency protocols for strokes, head injuries, and spinal cord injuries (including what to do on the way to the hospital).
•Protocols for neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s), cognitive impairment, chronic stress, and developmental disorders, along with the supportive therapies we have found enhance DMSO’s effects.
•Protocols for neuropathic pain, spinal pain, headaches, compression neuropathies, facial nerve disorders, and spasticity.
•Protocols for the eyes, ears, and nose (e.g., tinnitus and hearing loss).

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The Forgotten Side of Medicine