A couple of months ago a supplement company that I do some writing for sent me a bottle of Therapain Plus® to try because they wanted me to research and write about it.  I was happy to try it but skeptical about how well it might work.  In my experience, most topical pain relievers have three negatives: they are stinky and/or sticky, their effectiveness doesn't last very long, and they're not practical for the all-over body pain of fibromyalgia. 

My Personal Therapain Plus Experience

In addition to the body-wide aching, which is a daily occurrence with FM, more severe pain sometimes develops somewhere in my body – it may be my arm, hip, shoulder – you never know where it might crop up.  So I set the bottle of Therapain Plus aside to wait for one of those migrating pains to rear its ugly head. 

Two weeks later, it made its appearance.  I had been working at my computer for several hours when a sharp, burning pain – located just to the right of my spine where my neck meets my shoulder – grabbed my attention.  That sometimes happens when I sit at the computer too long without taking breaks.  (Yes, I know better – shame on me.)  Typically, nothing will ease that pain short of leaving the computer and resting for several hours.  But since I was working on a job deadline, resting was not an option.  I didn't know how I was going to finish my work.

Then I remembered the Therapain Plus and tried rubbing some into the painful area.  Within a couple of minutes, the pain had eased up and I went back to work.  I got involved in the article I was writing and didn't think about the pain again until after I finished the job several hours later.  I suddenly realized that not only had the pain disappeared, it didn't come back again.  Needless to say, I was quite surprised and very pleased!

Since that first experience, every time another painful spot pops up, I reach for the Therapain Plus.  Thus far it has worked well every time. 

The Story Behind the Product

After experiencing such unusually good results, I was anxious to learn more about the specific ingredients and how the product came to be.  Imagine my surprise when I learned that Therapain Plus was originally created to help people with fibromyalgia!  Now I was really interested in knowing more.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Rick Swartzburg, a chiropractor from Thousand Oaks, California, who developed Therapain Plus in an effort to help his wife who has fibromyalgia.  For the first few years following her diagnosis in 1996, they tried a number of different treatments - including more than 100 different topical pain relievers - but nothing was giving her significant or lasting relief.

One of the better products his wife had tried was called Therapain.  However, she felt it was too strong on her skin and the effects didn't last long enough.  Dr. Swartzburg researched the ingredients and had some ideas that he thought would improve the product, so he contacted the manufacturers. Working with their biochemists, he developed a new, more effective formulation dubbed Therapain Plus.