DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) is a solvent that has been used for many many years in chemistry. It had a short period of widespread medical use in the 80' where it was touted as a cure all for musculoskeletal injuries by a few select doctors. It fell out of favor with the medical field...though I can't remember why.
DMSO has a the unique property of being able to rapidly pass other substances mixed with it into the skin...however, it imparts a nasty garlicky, rotten cabbage, and oyster like taste in the mouth and lungs when it is applied to the skin. I believe that this is one of the reasons DMSO is not used as a carrier to make other oral or IM only drugs available transdermally. I believe that biggest reason DMSO is not used as a carrier in common medicine is because it is such an efficient agent at transporting EVERYTHING through the skin membrane that it is nonselective of what other agents cross through the skin into the bloodstream...this is problematic if the skin is not completely clean and absent of any other substances aside from the agent which is desired to enter the blood stream. The skin is a protective barrier on the body which serves, in part, to keep a large degree of undesired chemicals out of the bloodstream. In other words, you would not want ANYTHING on the DMSO application site which you are not willing to inject...this includes soap residue, substances with traces of heavy metals or chemical impurities, traces of lotion or skin care products, ANYTHING at all which you do not want transported into your blood stream. DMSO is that efficient at delivering outside substances inside your body.
When I was younger...and much more stupid...my friends and I used to put cocaine and DMSO on our wrists and rub it in. The effect produced by the cocaine was almost immediate. It was so quick and efficient at absorbing the drug into our system that it was very similar to IV'ing the drug. THAT IS HOW EFFICIENT DMSO IS and I believe it's ability to transfer ALL chemicals, desired or otherwise, through the skin so rapidly and efficiently might be a major contributing factor as to why we don't hear about DMSO more.
DMSO is, as far as I know, not known to cause any medical problems applied by itself. I wouldn't baptize a baby in the stuff but from what I remember, it's harmless by itself.
@Old The PubMed study is spot on with the scrotal cream. I would say that the compounding pharmacy "empower" isn't a reliable source of information since it is a company with monetary motives driving what it publishes and they compound a hydroalcoholic T-gel equivalent to Androgel...Androgel is riddled with problems as a TRT product and absorbs differently on different skin types and under different conditions such as humid/cold weather. Androgel is transferrable to other people for up to 6 hours after application...Androgel...is...crap.
