In regards to people, there are medical journal articles
stating that CS and GAG's help people too. It's new, but new
is good.
Mineral Ice is already sold over the counter for use in people.
So our friend "the other Kat... from So. Cal" is safe on this one.
Bute on the other hand is very dangerous to people and should
never be taken by people. DMSO is also not approved for
people... some use it anyways. Becareful not to over do it.
You can cause "DMSO burns" or something like that. DMSO
reduces swelling in local tissues, but it also has side
effects like disolving things and carring any substance you
might have on your skin into your blood stream. Or so I've
been told...
Linaments on tight sore muscles are supposed to increase
the blood flow to the area. Sore muscles are most commonly
caused by a build up of lactic acid which needs to be removed
from the tissue and re-metabolised aerobically into glucose.
Kreb's cycle and all that. Lactic acid is produced when the
body metabolises sugars anaerobically. It's a "dead end"
product and hangs around until the body can re-break it down
to metabolize. My favorite Physiology teacher pointed out that
a small adjustment to our evolution and we would produce
alcohol instead (like our little yeast friends) which would
have produced a much higher percentage of marathon runners
in the human population... drunk marathon runners.;-)
Anyways, if your horse has stiff sore muscles from lactic
acid buildup, rubbing in absorbine will help him as well as
it will help you. And rubbing it in well will help too...
to increase the blood flow to breakdown the lactic acid.
I'm not sure about "bracing" for tendons, but ice will reduce
*any* swelling in the tendon which allows the tendon to
return to normal size and heal. If there's no damage to the
tendon, icing is not going to do anything. But if there is any
swelling or filling at all, an untreated tendon will chaffe
on it's self and stay irritated. The time for icing is about
20 - 40 minutes in horses... at least that's what I've heard
vets recomend. In people it's more like 15-20 minutes. 4
times a day is best... but even once will give the tendon a
rest and a chance to return to normal size and heal.
As always, this is just my understanding of things at this
point in time... and is subject to correction if anyone has
more input. I guess I wouldn't recommend people
taking the regular version of Flex Free as it contains alfalfa
and probably tastes really bad to people ;-) but I think the
maximum strength is fairly pure. And it's a heck of a lot
cheeper than GNC capsules... let's hope it stays that way.
:) - kat
in No. Cal. with Magnum the TB ex-racer who has one single
31.5 cm Stubben Survival saddle to his name which seems
to be the only thing that fits him... ever. Thank goodness he
does not have sore back troubles!