Osmoflex is especially effective, said its creator, Lafayette internist Dr. Barbara Brierre.

 Most rubs are topical, meaning that they don't penetrate beneath the skin, but

Osmoflex contains a liposomal delivery system that carries it through the skin into the

bloodstream and to muscles and joints where the pain is, Brierre said.

Dr. John Hendry and Burton Raffael, both friends of Brierre, have been using the

product since before it came on the market. Brierre passed out samples and asked

for feedback from many of her acquaintances.

"When she started developing Osmoflex, obviously, I was one of her guinea pigs,"

said Hendry, a local pediatric dentist.

He used it on the chronic tendonitis that plagued his elbows, commonly known as

"tennis elbow."

"I can't tell you that you rub it on and boom! It's gone forever. In the situation I had, I put

it on my left elbow before I went to play golf and when I was halfway through the round,

 I realized the elbow was not bothering me, anymore. Now I put it on before I go to

Red's."

Raffael tried it on the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, which he has suffered from for 50

years, and on the carpal tunnel syndrome for which he wears a wrist brace.

"I can even use it on hip pain," said the retired UL distinguished professor of arts and

humanities. "I get pain in every joint there is.

"I was very doubtful that it would work on the knee, because it's a larger joint and it's

deep. But, it just takes a little longer."

Raffael said that he has prescription medications for joint pain, but takes them only

when the pain becomes excruciating because of the side effects, particularly stomach

pain.

"Nothing the doctors have given me have given this kind of relief, this fast and without

some kind of side effects that other anti-inflammatories have," he said.

The reason it works, Brierre said, aside from the delivery system that gets it where it

needs to be, is its anti-inflammatory properties.

Although the only active ingredient listed on the label is menthol, that's just a

technicality, Brierre said. Menthol is the only component of the product that is

recognized as an active ingredient by the Food and Drug Administration. And although

Osmoflex does have a mild menthol smell, it isn't the overpowering aroma of

traditional creams, Brierre said.

The "inactive" ingredients listed are the ones that actually do the work, including the

much-touted glucosamine and chondroitin, as well as an anti-inflammatory agent

called methylsulfonylmethane, more commonly known as MSM, and magnesium,

which also has an anti-inflammatory effect.

"It also works well for muscle strains and sprains. Magnesium is our body's

physiologic muscle relaxer and that's why it was included in this formula," Brierre said.

 

The cream, which has been on the market since June, is the sixth product Brierre has

created.

She also has a line of transdermal supplements marketed under the Seablue line of

products.

Her interest in transdermal medications began several years ago, when she had a

local medical practice, which she has since given up to devote all her time to her

business, Panacea Products.

"I started looking at people who hated taking vitamins, hated taking calcium. It was the

same sort of thinking. Women didn't want to take all that junk and have it sit in their

stomachs," she said.

Brierre said many oral vitamins have limited stomach absorption, while transdermal

vitamins go directly into the bloodstream.

At least part of her motivation was personal.

"It was pretty much a selfish thing," she said. "I didn't like hormones; I didn't like

calcium."

With that in mind, she contacted a research and development company in Texas.

"I knew what I wanted to do. I just didn't have the background to do it," she said.

Many of Brierre's friends and acquaintances now use the cream, as does her

18-year-old son, a cross-country runner for St. Thomas More Catholic High School,

but she hadn't had occasion to try it herself, until recently.

"I was doing a women's fitness class at STM," Brierre said. "We had to run up and

down the bleachers and after two days of that, I couldn't walk. I used my stuff and ...

Oh my gosh! It works."