September 07, 2018
The everyday agony of joint pain is all too real. Joint pain limits function and mobility, complicating life and restricting your freedom. Here’s a surprising truth: Things can be different. You can find relief from pain. In this article, I’m going to tell you how. I will take you down the path Puriya’s ingredients took to arrive at the joint and muscle pain relief cream we have today, and why you can be confident that following in their footsteps will produce results.
What to Look for in a Joint Muscle Pain Relief Cream
In this article:
- The Sacred Sunflower
- MSM – A Magic Sulfur Mixture
- Lemongrass Oil
- The Ancient Lavender Oil
- A Modern and Natural Muscle and Joint Cream
The Sacred Sunflower
Did you know that plants can have a history? If not, let me introduce you to the fascinating story of the sunflower, one of America’s only true native crops.
We first see sunflowers cropping up in the Americas. Providing an excellent source of fat, sunflowers were grown by Cherokee Indians. While they may not have been aware of it at the same level that we are today, it provided them a much-needed addition to the animal game they consumed.
Ancient Uses of the Sunflower
Not too far south, down in Mexico, the sunflower played an integral role in the lives of Aztecs. Sunflowers were not only a crucial a food source but were also medicinally and religiously important. Francisco Hernandez, the court physician to King Felipe II of Spain, found that they were used to ‘soothe the chest’ as well as treating burns and stings.
In centuries past, ancient peoples used the sunflower as a way of treating illnesses and improving their lives. If we are meant to learn from the past, why not learn from these ancient societies of the New World?
Moment of Caution
The question is this: can we trust our ancestors? If we look back through time, we see a whole host of frankly problematic decisions, especially when it comes to medical practices. Raise your hand if you’d like to strap on a leech to your arm to cure your blood disease! Thankfully, though, there is more to the sunflower’s story.
The European Experience
Europeans showed up and decided that the sunflower would be one of the great treasures of the New World they’d bring home with them. Perhaps a sunflower was the 16th century equivalent of hiring an orchestra and setting off fireworks to compliment a marriage proposal. Did Hernán Cortés just want to woo his woman? The world may never know.
Unfortunately, the highfalutin upper class stifled its growth for a time. The sunflower, completely new in Europe, was exotic and was reduced to ornamental usage. The Aztec symbol of war and the divine became a symbol of wealth in the Old World.
How did we finally move forward? How did we get to the joint and muscle pain relief cream Puriya produces in the present?
The English Patent
A couple of centuries later, we see the earliest documented implementation of sunflower seed oil in the European world. The mists of time have parted to reveal a 1716 English patent for the industrial usage of sunflower oil. Surprisingly, though, the commercial success of sunflower oil comes not from whatever capitalist venture stemmed from this patent, but rather Russian Christians and one man’s love for beauty.
The Tsar, The Church, and the Flower
Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, was determined to bring Russia up to the standards of modern day Europe. He took a trip to the then flourishing Dutch Republic at the end of the 17th century. His experiences in Holland lead to many things, including the first ever episode of Undercover Boss. However, it also leads to Peter the Great’s obsession with the sunflower. He returned to Russia with the knowledge that lead Russia to prosperity and a flower that his people really didn’t care a lot about.
Enter the Russian Orthodox Church. During Lent, its faithful participants were forbidden from consuming oil. Thankfully, sunflower oil was not on this forbidden list. Combined with the fact that their great Tsar was an enthusiastic fan of the sunflower, the Russian people went from apathetic to fanatic. In just a few decades, Russia was growing over two million acres of Peter’s sunflowers a year. From war to wealth, to faith, the sunflower had stood for many things.
An Old Flower in the New World
By the mid-1800s, the sunflowers were making an illustrious return home to the Americas with Russian immigrants. Having dominated the lives of ancient American peoples and conquered the lives of 19th century Europeans, the sunflower was ready to once again revolutionize the New World.
A Rapidly Growing Sunflower Industry
The Southeast Missouri Sunflower Growers’ Association started processing sunflower seeds for oil in 1926. Not too long after, Canada got involved, launching breeding programs for the flowers. Soon manufacturing became intensely competitive, with plants popping up all over North America. New technology and superfood hybrids were just around the corner, promising bigger, better, brighter sunflowers.
The result is a booming and rapidly growing industry. In 2006, world sunflower production was over 30 million metric tons. In April 2017, the USDA estimated the worldwide sunflower production by 2018 will be 46.6 million metric tons. Talk about the difference a decade can make.
Why are sunflowers so popular? Why have they consumed so much global real estate? Should you care about whether sunflower oil is in your joint and muscle pain relief cream?
Rich in Vitamin E for Topical Creams
Sunflower oil is used so commonly in topical creams because it is extremely rich in vitamin E. This makes it a major benefit to your skin’s overall health, working to regenerate the damaged skin cells and better protect you from environmental damages like the sun and natural aging. You will even see it have an impact on scars and cuts.
Helps Get Rid of Athlete’s Foot
Studies have been done regarding its ability to treat foot fungi like Athlete’s Foot. This research has been very successful, showing that it has serious anti-fungal properties and will expedite the curing of Athlete’s Foot.
Perfect for an Anti-Inflammatory Muscle Cream
Additionally, sunflower oil also acts as an anti-inflammatory, an immensely beneficial quality when dealing with pain due to inflammation!
History has handed down nature’s fantastic sunflower elixir to us, and Puriya has made effective use of it in its joint and muscle pain relief cream. However, there’s more to the Ultra Relief Cream’s secret sauce than just sunflower oil. Let’s take a look.
MSM – A Magic Sulfur Mixture
Methylsulfonylmethane, or MSM, is a bioavailable sulfur with wonderful pain easing and anti-inflammatory properties. While it may have been discovered in a laboratory by Dr. Stanley Jacob of the University of Oregon School of Medicine, it takes its first spark of life from nature’s breath, as well as coming from an extensive line of restorative sulfurs.
Native Americans and Medicinal Sulfur
Many sulfuric hot springs have been hailed as fountains of youth for the healing benefits the sulfur laced water offers. For example, the Hot Sulphur Springs Resort & Spa in Colorado was first inhabited by Ute Indians who referred to the springs as “big medicine” and “magic waters”.
Ancient Egyptians Used it Too
Native Americans weren’t the only ones to dabble in the sulfur’s healing properties. The Ebers Papyrus, one of the most vital medical papyri we have from ancient Egypt, not to mention one of the oldest, dating back to 1550 B.C.E., detailed the usage of a sulfur ointment to treat granulated eyelids.
Chinese Medical Use
Additionally, Shen Nong was credited with the Chinese medicinal usage of sulfur in The Pharmacopeia of the Heavenly Husbandman. However, this work was not created until 3,500 years after the reign of the legendary emperor Shen Nong, a figure shrouded in myth.
The Babylonians and MSM
The usage of sulfur was also documented by the Babylonians.
When it comes to pulling ingredients from the hands of history, sulfur is certainly among them. But what exactly does MSM do? How does it help us?
Our Patented Powerhouse
Sulfur is used to heal the skin. In ancient times, it helped heal wounds and sores. MSM is a highly purified and concentrated form of sulfur. It’s also one devoid of sulfur’s tell-tale smell. This is a good thing, considering Indian alchemists chose to call sulfur a word that literally translates to “that which is aromatic” or “the smelly”.
What’s Puriya’s Secret When Using MSM?
They have implemented a special distillation process to achieve optimal purity. It delivers exactly what you need, and as a result, we have a product with more power to:
- reduce inflammation and swelling
- relax the muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, and nerves
- be absorbed into the skin
- make the skin more permeable for the other ingredients in the muscle pain relief cream
- make it easier for toxins to be purged from the skin cells
You may be wondering: where did this fountain of youth effect come from?
Rich in Collagen and Vitamin C
The answer lies with collagen, the protein that is always in ample supply. It is spread throughout our bodies, our skin, our bones, our blood vessels, our muscles, our digestive system, and our tendons. As we age, our body will produce less and less collagen.
We can’t blame our ancestors for looking at the sulfur laced hot springs and seeing a fountain of youth. It helps promote collagen production, working hand in hand with vitamin C to produce new and vibrant skin tissues. The Ute Indians and other ancient peoples like them could only see that the external effects of aging, the wear on the skin, had faded. Thus, the fountain of youth was born.
What better place to start working on your skin, on your muscle pain, than with the power of the fountain of youth?
Lemongrass Oil
What other ingredients have been acquired from history’s hallowed halls? What other hidden treasures has Puriya put in their joint and muscle pain relief cream?
While there are several still unexamined, next on our list is lemongrass oil. Nature has brought forth a bounty of resources and this antibacterial, analgesic, and relaxing oil is an important addition to Puriya’s product.
India and its Fever Tea
Lemongrass has deep roots in India, going back hundreds of years, with strains originating from various regions. They used it in a wide variety of ways. The most common usage was in a beverage they called “fever tea”. They used this to treat, you guessed it, fevers!
How did we get it in the western world?
Introduced into America
Eventually, it found its way into America in 1917. In fact, S.C. Hood in Bulletin 442 of Bureau of Plant Industry discussed the profitability of lemongrass oil ventures that same year. He believes the demand is ever increasing, writing that “The consumption of lemongrass oil in the United States for the manufacture of ionone and for perfumery purposes is continually increasing, and it is believed the demand is sufficient to warrant an attempt to grow the plant…” and “…it seems possible to produce [lemongrass] oil commercially at a fair profit.”
The Benefits of Lemongrass Oil
I wonder what S.C. Hood would think now if he could see the massive growth of the industry! Today we see lemongrass oil being used widespread, ranking among the top ten oil-bearing crops in the world. While it has a wide variety of medicinal uses, for our purposes, we will focus on ones most conducive to a joint and muscle pain relief cream.
1. Antibacterial and Anti-Inflammatory
Lemongrass oil is antimicrobial, making it excellent at warding off bacterial infection. On top of that, it helps to reduce inflammation in muscles and joints.
2. Essential for Topical Muscle Pain Relief
Lemongrass oil is also a wonderful sedative, having a soft, soothing effect and making it easy to sit back and relax. It also helps to further facilitate nutrient absorption, working hand in hand with MSM to deliver the full effect of the Ultra Relief Cream’s ingredients.
Having been used throughout history to relieve pain, lemongrass oil serves as a wonderful addition to nature’s mighty mixture.
The Ancient Lavender Oil
You’ve probably heard of this next ingredient. Lavender oil is one of the most popular essential oils around, having a myriad of uses, and having a history that goes back several millennia!
Mummification in Ancient Egypt
For example, we see lavender oil crop up in ancient Egypt, as far back as 10,000 BCE. It was used to soften the skin as well as aid in the mummification process several millennia later when the process of embalming is developed in3,200 B.C.E.
Bathing for the Ancient Greeks and Romans
The ancient Greeks and Romans, being big believers in the healing magic of bathing, also incorporated lavender in their baths. Considering how we use lavender oil now to create a calming effect, I’m not surprised that ancient societies tried to do the same!
Is the reason we as a society find baths so relaxing really because of a long history of socialization on the subject, stemming from the ancient usage of lavender oil? I don’t know if we have enough evidence to prove that here, but it’s certainly an interesting thought.
Ancient Potential for Pain Relief
The Greek physician Dioscorides, serving under the Roman Emperor Nero, created his 5-volume work known as De Materia Medica. In it, he talks about how it can help with “pains of the side and the nerves” as well as “gaseousness” [indigestion].
An Ingredient for Natural Joint and Muscle Pain Relief
While modern treatment methods have certainly expanded beyond Dioscorides, we do still use lavender oil as a way of relieving pain. The shroud of history has once again stepped aside to reveal to us another resource from the vast reservoir of nature that has been in use for millennia.
Any essential oil with pain relieving benefits like that of lavender and a history of medicinal treatment that goes back millennia is definitely a must-have ingredient for a joint and muscle pain relief cream.
Lavender Crowned [by the] Queen
Queen Victoria took a special interest in lavender. In August of 1886, she visited a Sarah Sprules who had taken over her father’s distillery business after he passed. She was very successful with her ‘lavender water’, with it winning several awards. However, the queen’s visit bestowed on her a new and far grander honor: “Purveyor of Lavender Essence to the Queen”. Sarah Sprules and Queen Victoria were the dynamic duo lavender needed to bring about its widespread commercialization. What the queen declared to be good, all soon followed suit. Everyone wanted the smell of lavender in their homes and around their persons, especially upper-class English noblewomen.
Without these two women, the lavender we know today may be completely different. Who knows? Perhaps the mists of time may have never parted long enough for lavender to be dragged from their depths into modern medicine. The world may never know.
Reasons to Love Lavender
Lavender essential oil has a MYRIAD of amazing benefits that can help treat a wide variety of symptoms and ailments. While not all of them are relevant to joint and muscle pain relief creams, many of them are.
1. Anti-Inflammatory
I hate to be captain obvious but, it’ll help relieve inflammation. If you’re suffering from inflamation externally on the skin or internally in your muscles, lavender oil will help.
2. Alleviates Pain
It is known for addressing a wide variety of pains, including muscular aches, joint pains, and backaches. Are you screaming for a pain relief cream for your back? Does your arthritis leave you feeling helpless? Are you sore after working out? Lavender oil will help with all those things and more! In fact, a postoperative study of pain showed that patients who received lavender oil with their oxygen reported a “higher satisfaction rate with pain control than patients in the control group [no lavender]”.
3. Relaxant
Lavender oil is very soothing and is often used to induce sleep, treat headaches, or calm anxiety. The aroma is very pleasant and it helps to relieve emotional stress as well as nervous tension. If you’re having trouble sleeping because of your pain, not only will it help to relieve your pain, but it will help relax you and put you to sleep!
Lavishing Lavender
An age-old treatment pulled from history’s open hands, lavender essential oil is overflowing with benefits for people suffering from joint and muscle pain, making it a perfect addition to our muscle pain relief cream.
A Modern and Natural Muscle and Joint Cream
After all this, we have arrived at a product filled with solutions that have literally stood the test of time. People like to discredit the validity and effectiveness of ingredients pulled from nature rather than a pharmaceutical company’s laboratory. This idea is toxic to our effectiveness in finding real solutions to our afflictions.
To Repeat or NOT to Repeat?
An idea commonly propagated is that we must know history so that we don’t repeat it. However, what about the stuff we do want to repeat? To operate under the assumption that the ideas we have about the world now are inherently better in every way, in every facet of life than those of our ancestors is not only narrow-minded but extremely destructive. We live in a world with more information widely available than at any other point in human history. The near infinite collective that is the human experience is at our fingertips.
Renowned Ingredients for the Best Pain Relief Cream for Joint Pain and Muscles
What we have here is not merely some untested, unproven theory born of a naturalistic tree-hugging ideology. What we have here is something composed of ingredients that have been proving their worth across countless different people groups over several centuries. In some instances, they’ve been showing their worth for thousands upon thousands of years.
A Revolutionary Joint Muscle Pain Relief Cream
The fact that the amazingly restorative sunflower oil, relaxing and soothing lavender oil, anti-inflammatory, and cleansing lemongrass oil, and the skin penetrating MSM have all been brought together in one place is the advancement this era of human history has made on these timeworn resources! Not only are we using these ancient wonders, we’re combining them and creating something new and impactful.
Watch this video from our channel Puriya Skin Care to find out more about the Ultra Relief Cream:
History’s purest purpose is to portray the past in a way that permanently permeates the future. Let yourself be forever changed by what history has made plain. Seek out the time-honored solutions that have been adapted and bettered with the wonders of modern technology.
Not sure where to start? I have some ideas.
What do you think of these natural ingredients in our joint muscle pain relief cream and the benefits they offer? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
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Editor’s Note – This post was originally published on May 5, 2017, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.