My husband and make sure to afford Penetrex, and here's why. We've worked demanding jobs for 35+ years, and lived through long-term, traumatic situations. Both have taken a significant toll on our bodies. We were raised that you keep going until your body simply cannot any longer. But bodies protest loudly. For my husband, the worst pain was in his neck and shoulders. For me, it was the joints in the hands, wrists, and tops and sides of the feet. On top of that, I also have an autoimmune condition that robs my body of moisture. My skin would get so dry that even the backs of my hands would get deep, bloody cracks, which often got infected. My hands would get so inflamed I couldn't concentrate. Just bumping them cause my eyes to water. I'd have to soak them in ice water to reduce the pain enough to sleep. The doctor just said, "Use lotion, try sleeping with gloves." I resorted to my own short-action concoction of an ultra-rich Eucerin cream infused with some left-over pharmacy-grade lidocaine solution I had for a different condition.
Hubby found some relief when I'd massage his neck and shoulders. The challenge was finding a pain-relief cream that could double as a massage cream. Pain-relief creams that were effective had poor "glide" for bare skin massage. Massage creams with great "glide" and absorption rates didn't have pain-relief qualities, and often broke down when adding pain-relief products to them. We kept trying combinations of creams, building up a closet shelf of barely-used products. Our trial-and-error was becoming cost-prohibitive.
As we prepared to shutter our mad-scientist's home laboratory, we saw Penetrex in an internet search. We'd never seen or heard of it before, but the price fit into our dwindling budget, so we ordered it as a pain-relief cream. We didn't mix it with massage cream right away, because we didn't want to risk breaking down and wasting the massage cream if the pain-relief cream was ineffective. I gave Hubby an after-work massage with just the Penetrex. We couldn't believe the glide across his neck and shoulders. The consistency was more like a rich massage, or extreme dry skin cream, than a pain-relief cream. Also, the overwhelming camphor / menthol / eucalyptus influences we were use to were barely noticeable. Of course, we assumed that because our noses weren't assaulted by the familiar smells, that Penetrex was destined to join the Shelf of Failed Products in the hall closet. Hubby put his t-shirt back on, hoisted up his aching body, and flopped into his recliner. Since I liked the smooth glide of the Penetrex, I put more on my hands and tried to rub the aches out of my fingers without reopening swollen wounds.
Once I finished, I went back to writing our to-do list. But something felt different. Wrapping my fingers around the pen wasn't as painful. The hot pain in my joints was less intense. The cracks on the side of my hand didn't sting when they touched the paper as I wrote. It was then that I realized that Penetrex DID MORE TO ALLEVIATE PAIN FROM ARTHRITIS, and CHAPPED, CRACKED HANDS than my own lidocaine lotion. As the evening passed, I realized the relief lasted longer, too.
I muted the television and asked my husband how his neck and shoulder pain was. He looked at me, grabbed the remote, and flatly said, "It's better," then unmuted the television and turned back to his movie. But what I SAW was the real testimonial of how effective Penetrex was from the first use. He skipped his usual recliner / heating pad nightly ritual. The heating pad was not only off, it was wrapped up neatly and set on the side table. Hubby also skipped his break-dance ballet of shifting uncomfortably to try and find a comfortable position in his chair. Instead, he was reclined, relaxed and focused on his program; something I'd not seen in a long time.
The price for Penetrex has increased since we first purchased it, but we'll cut out something else before we ever go without it. Besides, the money saved on expensive creams for severely chapped, cracked skin, more than cover cost of this product that works better than they ever did.
