by Art Solbrig
Published July 13, 2020
Updated December 09, 2020

My brother-in-law had severe arthritis, and it seriously affected his hands to the point that his fingers could just pull out of joint if he used his hands as most people do. So he had to be very careful how he used his hands. It got so bad that he had to use those yellow Playtex gloves to try and hold his fingers in joint. He would cut the fingertips off of the gloves so that his hands didn't get too sweaty, and he would wear these gloves during his waking hours.

He had a lot of pain with this condition also. I had never seen or heard of this health issue before.

Still, I tried to get him to try Ted's borax solution as it has worked so well for me for psoriatic arthritis that I have been pain-free for well over a decade.  Unfortunately, he refused to try borax even though it was clear he was in a lot of pain and that pain level jumped up a few notches every time one of his fingers came out of joint!

His doctor told him that this was caused by arthritis, and there was nothing the doctor could give him to help other than pain relievers. He said that this condition only gets worse with time, and eventually, he would have very little use of his hands. But realistically he already had very little use of his hands, which made the future look pretty grim for him.

My sister asked me to make a pain-relieving lotion for him to help him through the day and relieve the pain to sleep at night.

I made her a bottle of the pain lotion, and she rubbed it into his hands every morning, and every night before he went to bed so that he could get some sleep. Even though borax is a reasonably large molecule and does not easily penetrate the skin, I hoped that enough borax would get to his hand joints to possibly help a little.

I didn't see them for about a month and a half, and when I stopped by for a visit, I noticed that my brother in law was not wearing those yellow gloves and asked him why not.

He said, "Oddly, my fingers stopped pulling out of joint, so I didn't need to wear the gloves anymore." He then held his hands out and started wiggling his fingers very fluidly, and said, "My fingers don't hurt anymore either! I don't understand how this happened because when I told my doctor what had happened to my fingers and hands, my doctor said it's not possible!"

He never had to wear those yellow gloves after that, and his hands were pain-free from that point on!

Recipe

• All I did was add 2 (two) level American measuring tablespoons of borax that I had very finely ground up to 16 ounces of hand lotion and shaken it very well after letting it sit overnight. I used Cetaphil lotion, but have used other standard hand and body lotions for these purposes.
   
• I ground the borax in a "bullet type blender" so that it was like a powder to make it easier to dissolve in the lotion.
   
• I also used dye-free white ibuprofen as the pain reliever in the lotion and ground it up. Since it was white, it added no color to the lotion. Some of the over-the-counter ibuprofen has a color coating, so I don't use that type. In his extreme pain case, ibuprofen was needed to offer pain relief, so he would ask my sister to rub it in every morning and night faithfully. Without the ibuprofen's pain relief, he probably would have used the lotion only once and then never again.
   
• If I was going to add anything else to this lotion, it would probably have been peppermint essential oil to possibly act as a mild transdermal penetration enhancer with the idea that it would help improve the absorption of the borax into the skin and dermal layers.

Important Notes About This Remedy

1. Although I have mentioned that Ibuprofen and Naproxen will work as the pain reliever in this lotion, Aspirin can work fine also and is similar in pain-relieving quality to Ibuprofen. One advantage to Aspirin is that it is also antiviral, and as such, it is a better choice if you want to fight something like shingles /Herpes Zoster. The Aspirin helps to fight viral replication while offering fast topical relief from the pain associated with shingles! I just apply as needed to relieve the shingles pain, and all the while, it is fighting viral replication!
    
2. I know that DMSO can act as an excellent transdermal penetrant enhancer, but I don't like recommending others use DMSO in such a way, and the lotion ingredients are many that you would not want to pass through the skin in quantity.
    
3. I do not think this lotion would work for other joints such as knees because the borax is so poorly absorbed, but I have never tried it for knees or other joints before. I would have given him the borax orally as my first option, but he would never have agreed to that, so I had to do it without him knowing it by adding it to the lotion.

I thought this story was a little different and worth sharing with EC!

Art

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Where to Buy Art Solbrig's Topical Arthritis Ingredients

Borax

You can find borax in the laundry section of most grocery stores. Amazon sells it here.

White Ibuprofen Tablets

You can find dye-free, white ibuprofen tablets online at Amazon here.

Peppermint Oil (optional)

Amazon sells it here.