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But if you took a big whack during a game, let's say, and it was black and blue,
you'd rub it on?
JONES: Oh, yeah. I do this more when I when I play basketball in the
off-season. Sometimes you get kneed in a-- in a charley horse.
WALLACE: Yeah.
JONES: Boy, I tell you, those things are painful for days.
WALLACE: Right.
JONES: I put it on right after, and I may not have any pain the next day at all.
WALLACE: Jones says several of his teammates use it too, but they wouldn't talk
about it in public, because talk of any drug, especially an illegal drug, is verboten in
the NFL.
JONES: In our business, availability is the most important thing. In other words, if
a guy gets hurt, he's- he could lose his job. So, when someone comes to me and
asks for- me for it, I give it to them. And whether I'm legally okay to do that or
not, I really don't care, the repercussions, because I know I'm going to help
somebody.
WALLACE: Perhaps more typical of the legions who depend on DMSO are those
who suffer chronic pain. Emily Rudich suffered searing, unrelenting pain from
arthritis for years, and she could find no relief, she says, until DMSO. She'd no
longer be playing the piano without it, she told us.
EMILY RUDICH: I have some very badly gnarled fingers from arthritis, and the
DMSO eases the arthritis right away. It's not a miracle drug, doesn't really cure it,
but it eases it.
WALLACE: And it does other things for her too.
RUDICH: I had a fever blister on my lip. I used DMSO three times, and the fever
blister went away immediately. I've cut myself in the kitchen, and sometimes quite
badly, and have used DMSO on it and the cuts begin to heal right away.
WALLACE: How does DMSO work? What does it do inside your body that kills pain
and helps healing? Dr. Jacob gave us a capsule understanding.
DR. JACOB: One is that it blocks certain types of nerve conduction. These are
the fibers which produce pain. Second, it reduces inflammation or swelling. Third,
it actually improves blood supply to an area of injury. Fourth- and this could be
the key - in the test tube in certain types of injury, it literally stimulates healing.
WALLACE: But is it safe to use? We put that question to Dr. Richard Crout, head
of the Bureau of Drugs of the Food and Drug Administration.
How many people have died from using DMSO? How many that you know have
gotten ill from using it?
