Notebook


The magic of mint: pain relief from a garden product By Dorothy Dobbie


A


t this time of year you learn some- thing about yourself. No matter how hard you worked out all winter,


it didn’t inure you to the aches and pains that follow a good day in the garden. Sure, you’ll eventually loosen up and the little- used winter muscles will begin to respond, but those first few days can be painful. I have come across something that may


be helpful to you: a product called TPR-20. I stumbled on it a couple of years ago while watching a morning CTV television show in Ottawa. The interviewer was airing a weekly segment called Healthy Living and interviewing her


regular guest, Stephen


Brown, president of the Family Physio- therapy Centres. He had brought with him a family physician, Dr. John Kindle, and they were talking about this remark- able product. It treated muscular and joint pain, including arthritic pain, like nothing they had ever seen, they said. Best of all, the ingredients were all natural and there were no side effects They told anecdotes about patients who


had achieved amazing relief by using the cream, TPR-20. The doctor had even used it on himself to heal a muscle pull so he could play squash. When I discovered that the product was


invented by and being manufactured and sold by a man named Blair McInnes who lives only blocks away from my Winnipeg


home, I was blown away. We met – he walked over to deliver a couple of samples – and he told me his story as we sat in my garden. “I was recovering from a heart attack,”


said Blair. “I didn’t want to take morphine or any of the drugs that are commonly used and that can impact on other parts of my body when they are taken internally.” As often happens when you encounter


a major health issue, the event can have a profound impact on our thinking. Sudden- ly it became important to Blair to leave a legacy for his children and other people. Blair realized that, as an entrepreneur and business investor and having ‘dabbled’ in the health industry for 20 years, he had made a lot of friends and contacts in the field who had the knowledge to create products that would be easier on people and make their lives better. He created Trans Research Labs Inc. and set the wheels in motion. “Originally, we developed TPR-20 to


help with arthritis pain,” he said. “Later we learned that it was really useful in the immediate relief of burns and bites and stings and for incidental pain such as when your kid falls down and hurts his knee. It takes the pain away almost immediately.” The key active ingredient in TPR-20 is


Lidocaine, the painkilling stuff your dentist uses. Lidocaine has been used by dentists for decades as a topical gel and an inject-


able anesthetic with very few side effects. Originally produced under the name Xylo- caine by Swedish chemist Nils Lofgren, the substance has been on the market since 1949 and is safely used as a local anesthetic for a broad range of pain. The second key ingredient is menthol,


obtained from mint, which itself has local anesthetic properties. “It has the abil- ity to chemically trigger the cold-sensitive TRPM8 receptors in the skin responsible for the well-known cooling effect,” says Wikipedia. It is similar to the capsaicin found in hot peppers but has the opposite effect to produce a cooling sensation. Menthol encourages blood flow to the


skin and promotes absorption of other ingredients in topical formulations, in this case, helping to carry Lidocaine to the source of the pain. The testimonials from friends and


acquaintances are remarkable and consis- tent. It works. In the past year or so, Blair and now


his associate, Adam Topp, former CEO of Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre, have had the product purchased for sale by Rexalls and London Drugs. It is widely distributed by Boots Pharmacies, the larg- est drug store in the U.K. For me, this is a wonderful story because


it underlines the efficacy of natural prod- ucts in helping us heal.


www.localgardener.net


Early Spring 2014 • 7


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