Penetrex Joint & Muscle Therapy - Soothing Comfort for Back, Neck, Hands, Feet - Premium Whole Body Rub with Arnica, Vitamin B6 MSM & Boswellia - 2oz 3-Pack

Let's get something straight from the get-go; Penetrex is a pain reliever (even said so on the label) and as a pain reliever, it works surprisingly well. However, many customer placed too much faith in the creme as a "cure-all" for their disorders/diseases/pain (basing on the 3 stars reviews and lower). In my perspective, Penetrex works by keeping your pain at bay so YOU can find and fix the underlying problems.And there lies the problem. There is a major emphasis on the YOU part.Now to paint my scenario.I was diagnosed with Patellofemoral Syndrome by two different clinics. The pain became so unbearable that I was limited to upper body exercises for three whole months. Usually in these cases, icing and rest would be prescribed, and since X-rays and MRI both showed no signs of abnormalities, ice and rest seemed like the only logical solution. I too was under the impression that my knee would recover in time but as the clock ticked, long car rides and extensive sittings became more and more unbearable. After 3 months of doing nothing, I took it upon myself to find a solution and after extensive reading and tinkering and soul searching, it seems my vastus medialis (inner quadriceps muscle) was at fault. This "little fault" caused a myriad of messes: My lateralis tightened up, I always felt a tug in my right hip flexor, and because of the tug, my t-spine (I'm a nerd, I know) would prematurely round when I squat. EMG results confirmed my hypothesis; my VMO would shut down as soon as I ventured beyond parallel during any sort of exercises. Now that I am armed with this discovery, I was ready to make drastic changes. The only drawback was the massive, excruciating pain that accompanied rehab and therapy work, even the lightest workload, such as bodyweight squat and peterson step-up.That's when I discovered Penetrex. The creme allowed me to progressively strengthen my VMO, without having to endure the torment.Here is another scenario: My friend who is currently suffering from a similar knee issue. His VMO rides even higher than mine, almost 4 inches above the kneecap. He is a long distance runner and I am a powerlifter. Two people from two different sports, suffering from the same problem. After convincing him to drop running for a while (athletes can be very hard-headed) and go through an extensive rehab program, his kneecap no longer slides and I bet with a little more time, the pain will disappear altogether.Yes, I do wholeheartedly recommend Penetrex for all acute injuries (and some chronic). I came to realize that there are a certain few customers who view Penetrex as nothing more than a glorified DMSO product, and to a certain extent, I agree with them. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing! Pure DMSO is extremely potent and works well to ease tendinitis and other symptoms. I myself have used DMSO but found that with multiple applications in a day, even with less potent concentration and/or mixes, it tends to eat away the skin fairly fast. Penetrex does not do this and eventually you have to ramp up the dosage (while doing rehab work, of course) to speed up the healing process.Whether it is straight DMSO or Penetrex, like I said, YOU will have to play a huge part in the recovery stage. Do not expect to dabble on the creme and by some miracle, your tendinitis will dissipate. If you play golf and suffer from elbow and back pain, common sense would dictate that you take some time off and REALLY find that kink in your kinetic chain. Common sense also tells us that golfing is a very one-sided sport, so wouldn't it make sense to focus on a bit of weight training to strength the oblique/back muscles and biceps/triceps? If you're a long distance runner and are suffering from knee pain, don't continue grinding your knees to dust! Stop running and find the underlying problem! Take up weightlifting to strengthen the entire posterior chain; more muscle = less force absorption on the knees when the feet hit the ground. And judging from the numerous runners who are diagnosed with some kind of patella problem, the VMO is at fault.This review should not be viewed as me chastising or as a lecture but as me sharing one of my humble life experiences :) We all have to do things that we hate and being a strength athlete who absolutely loved to squat, it was heartbreaking and a blow to my ego when I was reduced to doing peterson step-ups and body weight lunges. If you truly love what you do, be it golfing, running, lifting, or playing competitive sports, then do everything in your power to make sure you can continuing doing what you're doing!

I weighed heavily, being a skeptic, writing this and how I was going to write it. Please take it as seriously reading it, as I am being, writing it. It is written with you in mind.Tennis elbow I guess, I am like millions of Americans without health care, and cannot afford to see "specialists" to cure what ails me. I have seen a doctor for my elbow, and costochondritis which had been going on for a couple of years. I did my research and found out about Penetrex. Now let me say for a moment here that I was very much a skeptic that some sort of cream was going to help me as this elbow/forearm injury, and an ongoing issue with pain in my chest... actually I wasn't thinking of the costochondritis as being something that could/would be affected.I wish to say that when I ordered it a few weeks ago, I WAS encouraged by the money back guarantee, and others' reviews. I was desperate, I use my right elbow for a furiously repetitive task for a living and there is no one to replace me and I am self employed. our entire household income depending on what I do. People depend on me for my service to them. Several things throughout the day which include but are not limited to heavy lifting, if not don correctly, I can be injured for life.There was no way out of the rut. Pain pain pain. Everything I did caused more pain. After work when resting, the elbow was continuing to thump. Pangs, what felt like incessantly. I did try other things, and nothing would stop the pain.This did not at first stop the pain, but three times a day is what I did, religiously, and still do... rubbing it in to where I was feeling pain, til it was no longer lotion-y. After about 10 days, I started to notice not only the pains stopping, slowly but surely, but it was getting stronger. Something hit me, try it on my chest??? I searched reviews here via the amazon search option for "costochondritis", and had seen where someone mentioned it has helped them. In those areas ( about three, started feeling it about three years ago after a cold and heavy coughing), it worked for me rather quickly, kinda shocked me honestly. Needless to say as the elbow, it has been LIBERATING.After somewhere near three weeks or so, I still have about 40 percent of it left.Also need to note, the makers sent me an email guaranteeing a refund if it doesn't work... pretty cool!Having heard my reports of "I think it's WORKING!", my lady here, used it for some soreness around her hip, and carpal tunnel flareups, and said within days it had worked for HER.I have told friends about this as well, and continue to be pretty amazed that this stuff is working. Now I wish o say as well, I have employed, upon reading this from others on amazon reporting, bromelain I got at The Vitamin shoppe, on an off here and there, I use amino acid supplements, not on a non stop basis... I use every three days or so, an omega chewy thingy... and for about two weeks, wrapped the elbow with a ace bandage when sleeping, and have adjusted my sleeping patterns a small bit. I still feel a small bit of pain for the first half hour upon waking up... when moving though, I usually see that stop before going out to work, I use the penetrex, I use it every night before going to bed. Even typing THIS, I am feeling no real pain which is saying a huge amount.I will update this and if you comment on this post I, unlike many amazon posters, will reply when I see the notification email.. and if I can help you out, I will.Yes, I was skeptical, and a complete nonbeliever, and still am pretty amazed having discovered this stuff is for real. I WILL order this again.... I simply, after seeing what it's done for other things, cannot have a medicine cabinet without Penetrex in it... just added it to my spellcheck.UPDATE: November 2013= I am STILL pain free and stopped using it long ago. I am absolutely liberated to be out of pain now. Thank you penetrex, I never forget those that help me, and you have made my life better, taken away the pain. Aplus!!!!!UPDATE: (nearly)OCTOBER 2014= Still 100 percent pain free. Business is busier than ever, and I still feel like it never happened. I still tell people about this cream all the time, whenever I can. Also helped a wrist issue this past summer, needed to use it regularly for about 2 months, and modify my activity, yet, Penetrex still shows it's stuff to me, every time. And HUGE news, my costochondritis, after a long time of use, is now what appears to be gone. I am still using this cream on that area of recent pain nearly every night, but it's been three weeks with no pain spikes!

This muscle rub works ok, but the pain relief does not last long.

I have arthritic necropathy in my feet. I have what I call Terradactyl toes. I slather it on my feet, knees, elbows, shoulders, & neck. Within minutes my joints feel so much better. I still feel slightly bothered at times, but the stabby pains take a break. It last about 4 hrs, like Ibprofen. The price wouldn't be worth it for me, if it didn't work so good. I like the cream better than the gels. It's soothing and moisturizing. If ever I become really wealthy, I would soak in a tub of it until every inch of me felt better. It does not smell much at all, which is great because nobody likes to smell mentholated.