I use it very, very sparingly. I mix it with arnica and use it to get pain relief in my joints when they are very, very swollen and red due to arthritis attacking them.
I don't know too much about
DMSO, other than you MUST wash your hand and the area you are going to apply it, as it will take any substances on the surface of the skin and pull them down into tissues and joints - which is why I combine it with arnica. It pulls it down past the skin and into tissues and joints!
It's a solvent, and that alone keeps a lot of people from using it, but if you have enough pain and no way to relieve it, you will try most anything that's not immediately harmful. If the air moved over my joints when they were being attacked by the arthritis, I would sit and cry silently because the pain was unreal. I figured the solvent wasn't going to do nearly as much damage as what felt like acid inside my joint was doing.
Even my husband will use it when he has joint pain that is just too great to ignore.
I've read and heard that some people use DMSO alone for pain, but I use it in combination with other things - although I did just read that it's useful for interstitial cystitis, but it's given by IV, so it's not something I'm even in a position to even consider.
I use a very pure brand - it's 99% pure. I think that's a big deal as well - you don't want a bunch of other stuff in it, since it will end up in your cells as well.
What I buy/have available is in liquid form.
This is a site that has a lot of information and references about
this:
www.dmso.org/articles/information/muir.htm