A neuroscientist and some grape skins vs. the pharmaceutical industry.

Making a test subject of himself

In late 2017, NPR aired a two-minute segment on the science behind our new pain cream. It became such a popular segment that it left our customers hungry for more detail. So by popular demand and for the first time ever, here’s part 4 of an 11-part story on the discovery and creation of Ted’s Pain Cream. To read from the beginning, click here.

Dr. Ted Price sits in his university neuroscience lab. He’s in pain. He appears to be sitting on the first topical pain breakthrough in a generation. Why hasn’t he tried it himself?

“That’s a great question.” Ted muses. “I guess, as a scientist, you are rightfully pretty cautious about testing things on yourself.” Explains Ted. “Often the compounds you’re playing with are entirely untested and could even be toxic.”

It finally took an especially frustrating day of pain to get Ted to realize that resveratrol was neither untested nor toxic. Found in many fruits like blueberries and grape skin, resveratrol has been consumed by humans for ages. We’ve eaten it, stomped on it, drunk it for thousands of years. So Ted figured, “what the hell?” He grabbed the cream he had in the lab, rubbed it on his ankle, reapplied every few hours, and waited.

Three days later, he was back on the basketball court. “In all honesty, I was shocked. I was hoping for some pain cessation, but I wasn’t expecting this,” recalls Price. “For the first time in months, I had some real relief of my tendonitis in my achilles. And I also realized I might have something that could make a real difference in people’s lives.”

 

A medicine that makes itself unnecessary   Next >