DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) is having a moment. Since late 2024 a wave of Substack essays, wellness newsletters and Facebook groups has promoted it as a suppressed treatment for almost everything, and several of those pieces say outright that it "reverses paralysis." If you have a spinal cord injury, someone has probably sent you one.
This page goes through what is actually behind those claims: the animal studies, the small amount of human data, the recovery stories, the castor oil advice that travels with them, and the risks that matter more for people with SCI than for the general reader those essays are written for.
The short version
- There is real animal research, and it is all about the first hours after injury. From the 1970s on, several labs reported that DMSO given by IV shortly after an experimental spinal cord injury improved outcomes in dogs, cats and rats. Other labs found no benefit.
- There is no controlled human trial of DMSO for spinal cord injury. Not for acute injury, not for chronic injury. The one peer-reviewed paper on SCI patients who received IV DMSO measured kidney safety and did not report whether anyone improved.
- Nothing in the published research tests rubbing DMSO on the skin for a chronic injury, which is what most people reading the Substack posts actually end up doing.
- The recovery stories are real stories, but they can't tell you what caused the recovery. Most involve early, incomplete or converting injuries, where improvement also happens without DMSO.
- Castor oil plus DMSO has never been studied. People use the oil to reduce DMSO's skin irritation. Whether it goes on first or second is folk practice, and the folk don't agree.
- The most plausible use is pain, not recovery. Topical DMSO has randomized-trial support for complex regional pain syndrome. That is a different kind of pain from central SCI pain, and it has not been tested for SCI pain.
- SCI changes the risk picture: skin you can't feel, pressure-injury risk, autonomic dysreflexia, and a long medication list.
What DMSO is
DMSO is a clear solvent made as a by-product of wood pulp processing. It passes through skin and cell membranes very easily and can carry other dissolved substances with it. In the body it acts as a free-radical scavenger, pulls fluid osmotically (like mannitol), and has anti-inflammatory and local pain-relieving effects. Part of it is converted to dimethyl sulfide, which is what causes the garlic or oyster smell on the breath and skin of anyone using it.
Dr. Stanley Jacob at Oregon Health & Science University began promoting it as a medicine in the early 1960s. In November 1965 the FDA halted US clinical trials after lens changes were seen in the eyes of laboratory animals given high doses. That effect was not later confirmed in people, but research never fully recovered. The history is the root of the "suppressed cure" story, and there is some truth in it: DMSO is off-patent, hard to blind in a trial because of the smell, and nobody has had a commercial reason to fund large studies.
Legal status today: the only FDA-approved human use is a 50% solution (Rimso-50) placed in the bladder for interstitial cystitis. It is also approved for horses and dogs. Everything sold online for people is sold as a solvent, not a drug, and its purity is not regulated.
The animal research
This is the strongest part of the case, so it deserves a fair look. It is also older and more mixed than the advocacy pieces suggest.
| Study | Model | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Kajihara, de la Torre et al., 1973 | Dogs, acute cord trauma, IV DMSO | Better motor recovery than untreated dogs. The study that started the field. |
| de la Torre et al., 1975 | Monkeys, dogs, rats; brain and cord injury | DMSO "clearly superior to no treatment" in these models; mechanism unexplained. |
| Goodnough et al., 1980 | Dogs, impact injury, IV DMSO given before the trauma | No reduction in gray-matter damage; slightly more hemorrhage (not significant). |
| Gelderd et al., 1980 | Rats, complete transection; hyperbaric oxygen with or without DMSO injections for 10 days | Less scarring and more nerve fibers in the DMSO + oxygen group; six animals showed coordinated hindlimb movement, versus three with oxygen alone. Small, and DMSO was never tested alone. |
| McCallum, 1983 | Cats, slow cord compression | Improved evoked potentials and neurologic function. |
| Park & Tator, 1998 | Rats, clip compression; DMSO applied directly onto the exposed cord 1 hour later | No benefit on spinal cord blood flow or evoked potentials. |
| Turan et al., 2007 | Rabbits, cord ischemia (blood-supply loss), DMSO beforehand | Trends in DMSO's favor on every measure, none statistically significant. |
Three things to take from this:
- Timing. In the positive studies DMSO was given by IV or injection within minutes to a few hours of injury, to limit the swelling and secondary damage that follow trauma. That is an emergency-room question. It says nothing about an injury that is months or years old.
- Route. None of these studies tested DMSO rubbed on intact skin. The one study that put DMSO directly on the injured cord found nothing.
- Track record of the category. Many neuroprotective drugs looked good in animal SCI models and then failed in people, including methylprednisolone (now controversial), GM-1 ganglioside and others. Animal success is a reason to run a human trial. It is not a substitute for one.
DMSO is also used as the inactive "vehicle" to dissolve test drugs in hundreds of modern SCI rodent studies. Researchers have noted that it sometimes has effects of its own, in both directions: in one rat brain-injury study the DMSO-only group was protected as well as the drug groups, while in a mouse brain-injury study DMSO-treated animals performed worse on a balance task. A 2025 computer-based screening study listed DMSO among candidate compounds for subacute SCI, which is a prediction, not a test.
The human evidence
Spinal cord injury
I could find one peer-reviewed human paper. In 1980, Muther and Bennett reported in JAMA on a small group of stable quadriplegic patients in Oregon who were receiving IV DMSO for their spinal cord injuries. The paper was about kidney safety. It found that IV DMSO caused dose-dependent breakdown of red blood cells (hemolysis) with hemoglobin in the urine, and that kidney function was not harmed. It did not report whether the patients' paralysis changed.
So people with chronic SCI were given IV DMSO by its leading proponents more than 45 years ago, and no published result shows that it restored function. Advocacy articles also cite Dr. Jacob's account of three acutely injured patients treated 5 to 9 hours after injury, two of whom later walked. I could not find that series in a peer-reviewed journal. Three patients with no comparison group and unknown injury completeness cannot show anything either way.
The most complete summary by the proponents themselves, Jacob and de la Torre's 2009 review, describes DMSO as "potentially useful" for head and spinal cord injury. That is as far as the researchers who believed in it most were willing to go in print.
Brain injury (the closest human data)
Small, uncontrolled series in severe head injury reported that IV DMSO quickly lowered dangerous pressure inside the skull: Waller 1983, Kulah 1990 (10 patients) and Karaca 1991 (10 patients). But Marshall's 1984 series of six patients ran into fluid overload, severe electrolyte disturbances and eventual loss of pressure control, and DMSO dissolved the IV tubing. Those authors concluded the risks might outweigh the benefits and cautioned neurosurgeons against using it. No randomized trial followed.
Pain
This is where topical DMSO has its best human evidence. For complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), a randomized double-blind trial of 50% DMSO cream (32 patients) beat placebo cream, and a 146-patient trial found it about as effective as N-acetylcysteine. CRPS is a limb pain condition with a strong local inflammatory component. Below-level neuropathic pain after SCI is generated in the cord and brain, and a cream on the skin is much less likely to reach the source. Nobody has tested it. One lab finding points the wrong way: in isolated rat spinal cord, low concentrations of DMSO enhanced pain-signal transmission.
Musculoskeletal pain above your injury level (the overworked shoulders, neck and wrists) is the kind of pain DMSO was most studied for in the general population, with mixed results. If DMSO does anything useful for someone with SCI, this is the likeliest place.
Skin
This one matters for us. DMSO cream was tried as a way to prevent pressure injuries. A randomized crossover trial found massage with DMSO cream no better than plain cream or repositioning alone, and a 2018 Cochrane review concluded from one 61-person trial that DMSO cream may increase the risk of pressure ulcers (about double, low-certainty evidence).
Clinical trials
I searched ClinicalTrials.gov on October 3, 2026 for DMSO or dimethyl sulfoxide with spinal cord injury, brain injury, neuropathic pain, CRPS and pressure ulcers. No registered trial, past or present, tests DMSO as a treatment for spinal cord injury. The only hits were a neuropathic pain study that used dilute DMSO as the placebo and a study of an embolization product that happens to be dissolved in DMSO. If that changes, it will show up in our Clinical Trials Finder, which refreshes nightly.
The recovery stories
The current wave traces mostly to a pseudonymous Substack author, "A Midwestern Doctor," whose 2026 essay "How DMSO Heals the Spine and Reverses Paralysis" was syndicated by Mercola and others. It is long, heavily referenced on the animal side, and to its credit it mentions some of the negative studies. Its human SCI evidence consists of stories:
- A teenage hockey player with a broken neck, on a ventilator, whose mother applied DMSO by roller about ten times a day starting four or five days after injury. He reportedly went from AIS A to AIS C and later walked.
- A woman in Ecuador with a lumbar cord injury who received daily IV DMSO for months and regained sensation and walking.
- Reader comments: a parent whose son with a C1/C2 injury is now walking; a person whose feet "had been paralyzed for 13 years" walking without braces after three months of oral DMSO; a paraplegic who says DMSO replaced their nerve-pain medication.
- Older accounts from Dr. Jacob's practice, including a student with a C4–C5 injury who slowly regained hand function on DMSO started two years after injury.
I don't think these people are lying. The problem is what a story can and can't establish:
- Early exams are unreliable. A first exam done under sedation or during spinal shock often reads as complete. A meaningful share of people graded AIS A in the first days convert to incomplete, and most recovery happens in the first 6 to 12 months regardless of what else is tried. See Will I Recover? and Complete vs. Incomplete.
- Everything else was happening too. Surgery, decompression, intensive rehab and time all ran alongside the DMSO.
- We only hear from the people it "worked" for. Nobody writes a viral post titled "I used DMSO for a year and nothing changed."
- Details are missing. No before-and-after ISNCSCI exams, no imaging, no independent examiner.
The late-recovery stories (13 years, 12 years) are the ones that would be most remarkable if documented. None of them are.
What the SCI community says
I looked for discussion among people with SCI rather than among DMSO enthusiasts, and found very little:
- SCI podcasts and webinars. Our Research Library holds transcripts of more than 1,100 episodes and videos from CureCast, SCI Care, MSKTC, the UW SCI Forum, SCI BC, Shepherd, Craig and PVA. DMSO is not mentioned in any of them. The podcasts that do cover it are general wellness shows, not SCI clinicians or researchers.
- Reddit, CareCure, Apparelyzed. Searches surfaced no substantial SCI-community threads reporting results. (Reddit blocks automated reading, so I can't claim a complete search of r/spinalcordinjuries. If you've posted or seen a thread there, send it to me.)
- Facebook DMSO groups. These are large, mostly private, and focused on arthritis, back pain and skin. They are where the castor oil advice comes from. Paralysis testimonials there are the same handful that circulate on Substack.
- Remedy forums such as Earth Clinic have many posts on back and disc pain, with typical reports of pain relief and skin irritation, and few on cord injury itself.
That silence is informative. SCI forums have talked about every promising thing for 25 years. If rubbing an inexpensive solvent on the spine were restoring function in chronic injuries, those forums would be full of it.
Castor oil: first, after, or mixed?
Castor oil gets paired with DMSO for one practical reason: DMSO at 70% or higher often makes skin burn, itch, turn red and dry out, and a thick oil soothes that. There is no published study of the combination for any condition. What exists is folk practice, in three versions:
| Method | Who recommends it | Stated reason | What is likely happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| Castor oil first, then DMSO over it | Home-remedy forum users | "The castor oil protects the skin." | The oil layer dilutes and slows the DMSO reaching your skin. Less sting, and probably less DMSO absorbed. It is a gentler dose, not a stronger one. |
| DMSO first, let it dry 5–15 minutes, then oil | Most DMSO sellers | Let the DMSO absorb unimpeded, then moisturize. | Full DMSO exposure, with the oil treating the dryness afterward. |
| Mixed together (1:1 or 2:1 oil to DMSO) | Sellers of pre-made blends; some newsletters | DMSO "carries" the castor oil's ricinoleic acid deeper. | Unproven. DMSO does help small molecules cross skin, but no one has measured whether this does anything useful. |
So the honest answer to "should castor oil go on first?" is that the order has never been tested, and it mostly changes how much the DMSO irritates your skin. Castor oil first is the gentlest option. Diluting DMSO with distilled water to 50% does the same job more predictably. Castor oil has no evidence of its own for nerve repair, and castor oil packs have not been studied for SCI.
One caution that applies to every version: whatever is on your skin or mixed into the bottle (fragrance, essential oils, residue from a medicated cream) is something DMSO may help carry in.
Risks that are specific to SCI
For most healthy adults, small amounts of topical DMSO are low-risk. A systematic review of 109 human studies found side effects were mostly mild, short-lived and dose-related: skin reactions, stomach upset, headache and the garlic odor. That review was not about people like us. These points are:
- Skin you can't feel. The standard advice is "if it burns, dilute it or wash it off." Below your injury level you won't get that warning. Redness, hives and blistering can develop unnoticed, on skin that already heals slowly.
- Pressure-injury areas. The only controlled evidence on DMSO and pressure ulcers suggests it may raise the risk. Keep it off the sacrum, sit bones, hips and heels, and off any broken or reddened skin. See Pressure Injuries.
- Autonomic dysreflexia. If your injury is at T6 or above, any irritation below the injury can trigger AD. A chemical skin irritant applied over a large area below your level is a plausible trigger. This is my inference from how AD works, not something that has been reported, but know the signs before you try it.
- It carries other things through the skin. Do not apply DMSO near a fentanyl, lidocaine, oxybutynin or other medicated patch or gel, or over skin with other creams on it. Wash and dry the area and your hands first.
- Your medication list. Standard drug references warn that DMSO may increase the effect of blood thinners, sedatives and steroids. Many of us take anticoagulants, baclofen, gabapentinoids or opioids. Ask your pharmacist. See Medication & Supplement Safety.
- Drinking or injecting it. Oral use causes more stomach upset and stronger odor. IV use breaks down red blood cells, shifts fluids and electrolytes, and requires monitoring that the head-injury researchers struggled with in an ICU. Home or cash-clinic IV DMSO is the highest-risk way to use it. If someone offers you an IV DMSO package for paralysis, read Avoiding Scams After SCI first.
- Grade and purity. Industrial-grade DMSO can contain contaminants that it then carries through your skin. Products are unregulated either way.
- The smell. Minor medically, but it lasts a day or more and your caregivers will notice.
- Pregnancy and breastfeeding: avoid; safety is unknown.
If you decide to try it anyway
Plenty of people will, and I would rather you do it carefully than from a Facebook comment.
- Tell your physiatrist or pharmacist, and show them your medication list.
- Be clear on your goal. Pain in a specific muscle or joint above your level is a reasonable experiment. Restoring function in a chronic injury has no evidence behind it.
- Use pharmaceutical (USP) grade in glass, diluted to 50–70% with distilled water, with no added fragrances.
- Patch-test on skin where you have normal sensation, a coin-sized area, and wait 24 hours.
- Clean, dry, intact skin only. Small area. Nothing else on the skin. Let it dry before clothing or cushions touch it.
- If you use it below your injury level, have someone check the skin at 15 minutes, an hour and the next day, and stop at any redness that does not fade.
- Castor oil is optional. If your skin gets irritated, a thin layer first or a lower concentration both help. Don't add anything else to the mix.
- Set a time limit. Rate your pain or function before you start and again at four weeks. If nothing has changed, stop.
- Don't drop proven care for it, and don't take it by mouth or IV on your own.
Bottom line
DMSO is not a hoax. It is a real drug with real biological effects, a genuine early research history in spinal cord trauma, and a regulatory story that left it under-studied. A proper trial of IV DMSO in the first hours after injury would have been worth running, and it still has not been run.
But "under-studied" is not the same as "proven and suppressed." For an established spinal cord injury there is no human evidence that DMSO restores movement or sensation, by any route, with or without castor oil. The people who had the most reason to publish such evidence treated chronic SCI patients with it decades ago and did not report recoveries. The best case for trying it is as a topical for ordinary muscle and joint pain, used with more care than the general advice assumes, because our skin and our autonomic systems don't behave like everyone else's.
Sources & Further Reading
Study details were retrieved from PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov on October 3, 2026.
- Jacob SW, de la Torre JC. Pharmacology of dimethyl sulfoxide in cardiac and CNS damage. Pharmacol Rep, 2009.
- Kajihara K et al. Dimethyl sulfoxide in the treatment of experimental acute spinal cord injury. Surg Neurol, 1973.
- de la Torre JC et al. Dimethyl sulfoxide in central nervous system trauma. Ann N Y Acad Sci, 1975.
- Goodnough J et al. The effect of dimethyl sulfoxide on gray matter injury in experimental spinal cord trauma. Surg Neurol, 1980.
- Gelderd JB et al. Therapeutic effects of hyperbaric oxygen and dimethyl sulfoxide following spinal cord transections in rats. Undersea Biomed Res, 1980.
- McCallum JE. Improvement in somatosensory evoked response amplitude and neurologic function following DMSO in a cat model of chronic spinal cord compression. Ann N Y Acad Sci, 1983.
- Park YK, Tator CH. Failure of topical DMSO to improve blood flow or evoked potentials in rat spinal cord injury. J Korean Med Sci, 1998.
- Turan NN et al. How DMSO, a widely used solvent, affects spinal cord injury. Ann Vasc Surg, 2007.
- Muther RS, Bennett WM. Effects of dimethyl sulfoxide on renal function in man. JAMA, 1980.
- Marshall LF et al. Dimethyl sulfoxide for the treatment of intracranial hypertension: a preliminary trial. Neurosurgery, 1984.
- Kulah A et al. Dimethyl sulfoxide in the management of patient with brain swelling and increased intracranial pressure after severe closed head injury. Neurochirurgia, 1990.
- Zuurmond WW et al. Treatment of acute reflex sympathetic dystrophy with DMSO 50% in a fatty cream. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand, 1996.
- Perez RS et al. The treatment of complex regional pain syndrome type I with free radical scavengers. Pain, 2003.
- Kubota K et al. Enhancing effect of dimethyl sulfoxide on nociceptive transmission in isolated spinal cord of newborn rat. Eur J Pharmacol, 1998.
- Duimel-Peeters IG et al. The effectiveness of massage with and without dimethyl sulfoxide in preventing pressure ulcers. Int J Nurs Stud, 2007.
- Moore ZE, Webster J. Dressings and topical agents for preventing pressure ulcers. Cochrane Database Syst Rev, 2018.
- Kollerup Madsen B et al. Adverse reactions of dimethyl sulfoxide in humans: a systematic review. F1000Research, 2018.
- Li HR et al. Dimethyl sulfoxide into the bladder for interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome: systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurourol Urodyn, 2025.
- Yuan X et al. Key targets in subacute spinal cord injury identified by bioinformatics and Mendelian randomization. World Neurosurg, 2025.
- Dimethyl sulfoxide — American Chemical Society, Molecule of the Week (history and the 1965 FDA halt)
- Dimethyl sulfoxide: uses, side effects and interactions — WebMD
- How DMSO Heals the Spine and Reverses Paralysis — A Midwestern Doctor (the main advocacy source; read it alongside the studies above)
- SCI.help Clinical Trials Finder — updated daily from ClinicalTrials.gov data
SCI.help articles are information, not medical advice. Practice varies by injury level, provider, and institution — always confirm specifics with your own care team.