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This is somewhat complex, so you may want professional physician help, or at least study it carefully and work with an RN who can follow directions and administer it. As always, this is not medical advice, and don’t blame me if you have problems. At the end of this essay, I have much more material that you should read if you are serious about this practice. It is behind the paywall, but if your budget is extremely limited, you are welcome to get a free subscription for a week and download it anyway.
My overall impression is that intravenous DMSO is very safe, and as long as you follow a few guidelines for administering it, you’re unlikely to have any problems. Whether it’s a miracle worker or not is another issue.
Summary
· Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) protects nerve cells in animal models of Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), stroke, and head injury. Although there are many human case reports, human trials for degenerative diseases remain scarce.
· The only peer-reviewed human protocol is Hoang’s cancer-pain work, which infused DMSO with sodium bicarbonate at roughly 7 to 9 percent. Outpatient neurological and pain drips use lower concentrations, ranging from 3 to 10 percent.
· A gentle weekly dose is 15 to 20 cc of DMSO in 500 cc of saline, about 3 to 4 percent. The ceiling is hemolysis, so the concentration stays well under 30 percent.
· Off-the-shelf DMSO is not sterile, even at United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) grade. Injectable DMSO is sterile-filtered through a 0.22-micron polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membrane and is never heat-sterilized.
· A finished sterile injectable is dispensed by a compounding pharmacy on prescription. Sterile-filtered laboratory DMSO is different and is not labeled for intravenous use.
· Standard intravenous (IV) tubing is softened with DEHP (di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate), which is strongly extracted by DMSO. At 3 to 4 percent, leaching is minimal, but non-DEHP tubing is the safer default.
The molecule that goes everywhere
DMSO is a small molecule, a byproduct of paper manufacturing, and one of the most aggressive solvents known. It is nonpolar and dissolves in both water and fat, allowing it to slip through cell membranes and the blood-brain barrier as though they were open doors. Stanley Jacob, the Oregon surgeon who spent his career studying it, cataloged its actions for decades. It scavenges free radicals, reduces swelling, widens vessels, softens scar tissue, slows pain conduction, and prevents platelets from clumping.
The brain and spinal cord are where those actions matter most. After a stroke or a blow to the skull, the tissue swells with water, and that edema kills neurons within the first hours. DMSO reduces swelling and absorbs the burst of oxidative damage that follows.
Jacob and the neuroscientist Jack de la Torre laid this out in a textbook, Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) in Trauma and Disease. De la Torre’s intravenous experiments on head injury and stroke date back to the 1970s. This is old science, shelved once it became clear that no one could patent a solvent derived from a paper mill.
Yoho Comment: I have watched oral DMSO improve joint health, reduce inflammation, and help with old injuries, things organized medicine has spent 60 years pretending not to see. The intravenous route requires more caution because a mistake goes straight into the blood, with no gut to slow it down.
What the evidence shows
The animal evidence for neuroprotection is strong. For Parkinson’s, a 2023 rat study used the rotenone model. Rotenone is a pesticide that kills the same dopamine neurons the disease targets. In those rats, DMSO shifted brain activity toward a protective state.
For ALS, a study in the SOD1-G93A mouse model reported that DMSO improved motor function and extended survival. That mouse is the standard genetic model of the illness. A longer line of work shows the same pattern after trauma and after loss of blood flow. It reduces swelling and spares cells that would otherwise die.1
The mechanism behind these results is consistent across the studies. A dying neuron is flooded with hydroxyl free radicals, the most destructive byproduct of a cell starved of oxygen. DMSO neutralizes them on contact. It also draws water out of swollen tissue and stabilizes the small blood vessels that leak after an injury. Together, these actions lower the pressure inside the skull and widen the window for a neuron to recover. The same properties that help with an acute injury are what neurological patients hope to borrow for a slow one.
One laboratory finding cuts the other way. A 2022 paper in Scientific Reports tested low-dose DMSO on alpha-synuclein, the protein that clumps in Parkinson’s. The DMSO drove it to aggregate faster. This was a controlled in vitro experiment under set conditions, not a study of treated patients. Still, it argues against the belief that more drug is always better.2
The human record is thinner and points to injury rather than slow decline. De la Torre’s intravenous DMSO for acute brain and spinal trauma is the strongest signal in people. It concerns stopping a swelling cascade in the first hours. It does not address a disease that has progressed over years. Calling that work a bridge to treating Parkinson’s or ALS reversal is an extrapolation.
The dramatic accounts come mostly from the writer who publishes as A Midwestern Doctor, whose DMSO series is the most comprehensive collection on the subject. According to that record, a Parkinson’s patient in Amsterdam walked down a flight of stairs without the handrail within hours of an infusion. He cut his own food for a week afterward and spoke fluently again. A research scientist with the disease saw his slowness of movement clear and his rigidity drop by half. Other readers describe intravenous DMSO halting ALS rather than reversing it.3
These are testimonies, first-hand reports from named or described individuals.
The published protocols
The only peer-reviewed human protocol is from Ba Hoang and colleagues. Their paper, “Dimethyl Sulfoxide and Sodium Bicarbonate in the Treatment of Refractory Cancer Pain,” was published in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy in 2011. It paired intravenous DMSO with sodium bicarbonate and administered it up to five days a week for advanced cancer pain. The bicarbonate buffers the blood and helps maintain a stable pH, while the solvent shifts the body’s chemistry.4
The doses from that protocol fall within a convenient range. One version uses 25 cc of 99 percent DMSO in about 42 cc of 8.4 percent sodium bicarbonate and 208 cc of sterile water, yielding about 9 percent. Another uses 40 cc of DMSO in 83 cc of bicarbonate and 417 cc of water, yielding about 7 percent. Both include small amounts of magnesium and potassium. These are cancer-pain doses, higher and more frequent than those that might possibly be needed by a neurological patient.5
The outpatient neurological and pain doses are lower. Alan Gaby infused 6 to 15 cc of DMSO in 500 cc of saline in his practice, near 1 to 3 percent. One wellness clinic administers about 10 percent over 45 to 90 minutes, once or twice a week. A single dose of 20 cc in 500 cc of saline, the kind commonly given in one Pasadena office, works out to about 4 percent. That concentration falls between Gaby’s floor and the clinic’s ceiling, at the lower end of what people use.
Jack de la Torre published human trials of intravenous DMSO for acute brain swelling, including “Dexamethasone and DMSO in Cerebral Infarction” in Stroke in 1976 and “Dimethyl Sulfoxide for the Treatment of Intracranial Hypertension” in Neurosurgery in 1984. Those doses were far larger than any outpatient drip and were administered in intensive care with constant monitoring. They show that the vein tolerates DMSO under supervision. They are nothing like a home recipe.6
Yoho Comment: The lesson from these numbers is restraint. The dramatic anecdotes tend to come from the higher concentrations, and so do the hemolysis and other complications. A weekly 3 to 4 percent drip asks little of the blood and still delivers the peak that oral dosing cannot.
How it is given
The ceiling for intravenous DMSO is hemolysis, the bursting of red blood cells. DMSO draws water across the cell wall, and at blood concentrations near 30 percent it ruptures red cells, spilling their contents into the plasma and urine. Every repeat-dose protocol for pain and nerve disease stays well below that mark, in the 3 to 10 percent range. That is why dilution and a slow drip matter more than the total amount.7
The drip is intentionally slow. A fast push raises the peak too high and invites hemolysis, so most infusions take 30 to 90 minutes for a 500 cc bag. Some clinics check blood counts and a kidney panel between courses, since hemolysis shows up there first. It also asks about pregnancy, liver or kidney disease, and blood thinners, because DMSO blocks platelets and enhances their effect.
One effect is universal. Within a minute of the drip starting, the whole body emits the odor and taste of garlic and onion, and it lasts a day or two. DMSO breaks down into two substances: dimethyl sulfide, a gas the lungs exhale that causes the smell, and dimethyl sulfone, which leaves slowly and without odor in the urine. The Domoso veterinary label documents both, identifying exhaled dimethyl sulfide as the odor.8
The odor is stronger with intravenous therapy than with oral administration. Oral DMSO is about 90 percent absorbed, so the gut does not destroy the drug. An infusion quickly raises blood levels, so the lungs release a large pulse of dimethyl sulfide at once, making the smell more potent. The same amount swallowed is absorbed over hours, so the odor spreads out and softens. That sharper intravenous smell points to the higher blood peak, which likely explains why a small infusion does what a daily tablespoon does not.
Signs of hemolysis to watch for
Hemolysis first appears as discoloration. The plasma turns pink to red, and the urine turns pink, red, or cola-colored. The two quickest bedside checks are to spin a blood sample and look for pink serum above the packed cells, and to dip the urine to test for blood, even if the microscope shows few or no intact red cells.
The patient may notice symptoms before the color appears: flank or lower-back pain, chest or belly tightness, chills, fever, headache, nausea, a racing pulse, or a drop in blood pressure. Over hours, the labs confirm it with falling hemoglobin, low haptoglobin, and rising lactate dehydrogenase and indirect bilirubin. If the urine turns pink or the back aches, slow the drip or stop it and check a spun hematocrit. At 3 to 4 percent, this is highly unlikely.
Sterile is not the same as clean
A common belief is that DMSO does not support bacterial growth, so it needs no sterilization. That belief is half right. Concentrated DMSO discourages most microbes. But a study titled “Bacterial tolerance of 100% dimethyl sulfoxide” found that some bacteria survive in the pure solvent. That undermines its claim as a reliable sterilant. Once it is diluted to 3 percent, the other 97 percent of the bag is salt water, a fine home for anything that lands in it.9
Sterility is not merely the absence of live bacteria. A fluid can contain no living organisms and still cause fever, rigors, and shock. Dead bacteria leave behind endotoxins, called pyrogens, that inflame the bloodstream. Killing the organisms is not the finish line. The fluid must never have harbored them, and their debris must be filtered out. Injectables from a proper manufacturer are held to strict limits for endotoxin and particle count.
Heating is the wrong approach here. Autoclaving DMSO breaks it down into dimethyl sulfide and other sulfur byproducts. That is why manufacturers do not heat-sterilize it. The method that holds up is aseptic filtration through a 0.22-micron membrane. Endotoxin and live-organism testing follow. A study of sterilization methods for pharmaceutical DMSO found that only aseptic filtration met the chemical-quality requirements.10
How injectable DMSO is made pyrogen-free
A sterilizing filter is only half the job. A 0.22-micron membrane removes bacteria, fungi, and particles, but an endotoxin fragment is about 0.01 micron and passes straight through. Endotoxin, the pyrogen shed by dead gram-negative bacteria, is what turns a clean-looking bag into fevers, rigors, and shock. Sterile and pyrogen-free are two separate achievements.
Removing endotoxin requires different tools: ultrafiltration through a tight 10- to 30-kilodalton membrane, a positively charged membrane that adsorbs the negatively charged endotoxin, or activated carbon. A maker starts with low-endotoxin material and depyrogenated glassware, since dry heat near 250 degrees C clears endotoxin from glass and metal. The result is then measured, never assumed, by the LAL test (Limulus amebocyte lysate) in endotoxin units per cc, and injectable DMSO comes in under about 0.2 units per cc. This chain belongs to a pharmacy and cannot happen on a kitchen counter.11
Where to get it
A finished, ready-to-infuse sterile DMSO is hard to buy off the shelf. One compounding pharmacy, Premium Health Care Pharmacy in Miami, sells it openly online, listing DMSO at 50 mg per cc (5 percent) in a 30 cc injectable vial. Because it is a compounded sterile drug, it requires a prescription. Any sterile-compounding pharmacy can make injectable DMSO the same way, which is how most clinics obtain theirs.12
I found a source of sterile DMSO for intravenous infiltration that you can buy over the counter, and I’ve tried 30 cc in 500 cc of normal saline myself with no problems. It is the first listing behind the paywall.
Sterile-filtered laboratory DMSO is a different animal, and the label matters. Vendors such as Sigma-Aldrich, Tocris, and G-Biosciences sell sterile-filtered DMSO that meets USP grade, but it is intended for cell culture. It has no endotoxin testing and no injection labeling. Sterile-filtered means bacteria were removed, but pyrogens that cause fever and shock might still be present. It is pre-filtered and not injectable.13
Yoho Comment: The wall around injectable DMSO is a scheme to keep a cheap drug from patients. Sterile filtering and pyrogen testing are the only precautions that are earned, and they require sophistication you don’t have in your kitchen.
The plastic problem
DMSO pulls compounds out of cheap plastic, and that is the source of most trouble at the point of use. A cheap cup or a toothbrush handle left in a DMSO solution will leach into it, and the liquid picks up a mouthful of dissolved polymer. That taste is from plasticizer and softened plastic. The lesson applies to any equipment that contacts the solvent.
Most syringe barrels are made of polypropylene, which is impervious to DMSO. The rubber components are more problematic. Plunger tips and vial stoppers are elastomers, and many rubbers swell or leach when exposed to full-strength DMSO. The solution is to limit contact: draw up, then dilute immediately. This approach is adequate for preparing the solution from concentrate at home, but compounding pharmacies should use glass syringes with PTFE-tipped plungers to handle the concentrated solvent.
Intravenous tubing can be problematic with concentrated solutions. Standard sets are polyvinyl chloride (PVC) softened with DEHP, and strong DMSO both dissolves into the PVC and pulls the DEHP out. Phthalates leached from tubing are among the classic causes of serious harm blamed on intravenous DMSO, including heart-rhythm trouble. This is not an issue if you use 20 cc of full-strength DMSO diluted in 500 cc of normal saline.
Manufacturer testing found no detectable leaching of plasticizers from medical-grade PVC at 80 percent DMSO or lower, with the tubing intact. At 3 to 4 percent in a slow drip, the solvent is too weak to extract much from the plastic, so standard tubing is defensible, and a clinic that uses it is not being reckless. Non-DEHP tubing, made of polyethylene, polypropylene, or a fluoropolymer, remains the better default and becomes the right call if the concentration climbs to 10 percent or higher.14
The filter is the last line of defense. A 0.22-micron filter designed to remove bacteria will fail if DMSO dissolves the membrane. PTFE membranes withstand DMSO. Polyethersulfone, cellulose esters, and nylon do not resist the concentrate, so PTFE is the safe default when exposing the system to high concentrations.
Oral versus intravenous
Oral DMSO is absorbed almost completely, at better than 90 percent, and it spreads into every tissue, including the brain. Three tablespoons are about 45 cc, close to 50 grams of solvent. A weekly 20 cc infusion delivers about 22 grams once every seven days. For total drug and steady tissue levels, daily oral dosing beats a weekly drip by a wide margin.
Intravenous administration produces a higher peak. An infusion drives the blood concentration up faster and higher than a swallowed dose, which the gut spreads over hours and the liver taxes on the first pass. If intravenous DMSO helps the brain in a way the oral dose cannot, the mechanism is that peak: a short window when blood levels climb high enough to loosen the blood-brain barrier. The vein also skips the gut for a patient who cannot keep the oral dose down.
The case for intravenous relies on that peak. The stronger odor produced with intravenous use points to that peak, since it means more drug reaches the blood at once.
On a lighter note
If your care provider is your wife, like mine is, she has to start the IV and mix the solution. Mine mutinied on me the first time I asked her to do this, but then she relented when I had trouble getting my own IV in because of my tremor. When we discussed it later, I learned that she was worried about what would happen if I died during the IV. She was concerned about herself and not me! To ease her anxiety, I recorded a video of what was happening, claiming I had done the whole thing myself. She became more cooperative after that.
A conservative protocol, start to finish
The DMSO is compounded and sterile-filtered through a 0.22-micron PTFE membrane into a sterile bag, then tested for pyrogens. Dilute to 3 to 10 percent in saline or buffered saline, starting at 3 to 4 percent. If higher concentrations are used, it flows through non-DEHP tubing over 45 to 90 minutes, once a week to begin. At less than 10%, ordinary IV tubing and IV bags are considered adequate.
Some clinics perform blood counts and a kidney panel between courses, and they stop the drip at the first sign of hemolysis. Pregnancy, severe liver or kidney disease, and blood thinners are reasons to pause and reconsider. The garlic odor is expected and harmless.
Summary
The molecule protects neurons in the laboratory. The old trauma studies were shelved because of a corrupted medical establishment rather than failure, and the case reports follow a pattern that random noise does not. The practical objections turn out to be solved problems. Dilute to 3 to 10 percent. Your pharmacy should sterile-filter their concentrate through PTFE. Either run the fluid through non-DEHP tubing, or keep concentrations low, dilute your stock solution rapidly, and keep the concentrate off rubber for any prolonged period. Compounding pharmacies can handle the filtering and pyrogen control.
The interesting question is the one nobody has funded. It asks whether the intravenous peak does something for an injured brain that the oral approach cannot. Using this method is based on extensive testimony and a strong animal record. Taking it orally is essentially risk-free in reasonable amounts. Although human studies using convicts have shown that drinking a half cup of full-strength DMSO daily for three months produced no discernible problems, a reasonable but more conservative standard might be three tablespoons a day or less. Start at the lower end of this.
References
1. “DMSO Improves Motor Function and Survival in the Transgenic SOD1-G93A Mouse Model of ALS” (DMSO improved motor function and lengthened survival in the standard ALS mouse.)
2. “Low dose DMSO treatment induces oligomerization and accelerates aggregation of alpha-synuclein,” Scientific Reports (2022) (The counter-finding that low-dose DMSO can speed the aggregation of the Parkinson’s protein.)
3. A Midwestern Doctor, “How DMSO Heals the Brain and Transforms Neurology” (Source of the Parkinson’s and ALS infusion testimonies quoted here.)
4. Hoang BX et al., “Dimethyl Sulfoxide and Sodium Bicarbonate in the Treatment of Refractory Cancer Pain” (2011) (The one peer-reviewed human IV DMSO protocol, for refractory cancer pain.)
5. IV DMSO “Hoang” protocols with US equivalents (Consult Dr. Anderson) (Worked US-equivalent DMSO and bicarbonate recipes and their concentrations.)
6. de la Torre, “Dimethyl Sulfoxide for the Treatment of Intracranial Hypertension,” Neurosurgery (1984)(Human IV DMSO for acute brain swelling, the neurological precedent.)
7. “Dimethyl sulphoxide (DMSO) induced serum hyperosmolality” (The osmotic mechanism behind DMSO-induced hemolysis.)
8. Domoso (dimethyl sulfoxide) label (Documents exhaled dimethyl sulfide as the odor and dimethyl sulfone as the urinary metabolite.)
9. “Bacterial tolerance of 100% dimethyl sulfoxide” (Some bacteria survive pure DMSO, so it is not a reliable sterilant.)
10. “Suitable Sterility Methods for Dimethyl Sulfoxide USP, PhEur,” Pharmaceutical Technology (Only aseptic 0.22 micron filtration met quality specs; heat degrades DMSO; endotoxin held under 0.2 units per cc.)
11. “The Difference Between Sterilizing Fluids and Endotoxin Removal” (Critical Process) (Why a 0.22 micron filter does not remove pyrogens, and what does.)
12. Premium Health Care Pharmacy, DMSO 50 mg/mL 30 mL injectable (A compounding pharmacy selling 5 percent injectable DMSO by prescription.)
13. Sigma-Aldrich D2438, DMSO sterile-filtered, meets EP and USP (Sterile-filtered pharmacopeia-grade DMSO sold for cell culture and not labeled for injection.)
14. OriGen Biomedical technical bulletin, DMSO and PVC tubing (No detectable plasticizer leaching from medical-grade PVC at 80 percent DMSO or below.)
Yoho Note: What follows behind the paywall is an amalgamation of two of A Midwestern Doctor’s (AMD’s) essays about the nervous system and neurological diseases. The originals total more than 37,000 words, which is the length of a book. I wanted to get through it quickly enough to improve my Parkinson’s before I died of old age, so I summarized it here to help us all. The summary is still over 11,000 words, but it is required reading if you are serious about this topic.
You will learn that DMSO, taken orally and/or intravenously, may be the best treatment we have for neurological diseases. I am currently using both. Dosing information is in the final section.
At the start, I included links to download my books, including my book on DMSO. It will soon be available as a hardcover on lulu.com. This is also largely based on the work of A Midwestern Doctor. I am grateful to AMD for his groundbreaking, exhaustive studies of Stanley Jacob’s and other pioneers’ DMSO research, and I hope this information will be widely circulated in both the original and this abbreviated form.
If you found this information helpful and want to read the source material, go to the Forgotten Side of Medicine and get a paid subscription. I did.