Arthritis remedy helps ease the pain and keep sore Lions in finals action
The Age
Thursday September 10, 2009
AN ARTHRITIS remedy recommended to Brisbane captain Jonathan Brown by boxing champion Danny Green has already delivered the Lions a crucial edge in their 2009 finals campaign.At a time last year when Brown was being dogged by injury, Green urged him to try a herbal-based spray and cream treatment made by an Australian company part-owned by his trainer Angelo Hyder and marketed mostly to arthritis sufferers.Brown revealed after last weekend's elimination-final win over Carlton at the Gabba that the product, PainAway, had been instrumental in getting the Lions through a tough past month. Superstar centreman Simon Black and key-position players Daniel Merrett and Daniel Bradshaw had been doubtful for the Blues clash leading up to the match, but all managed to take their place in the team.Black and Merrett confirmed to The Age that they had used PainAway as part of their treatment, while teammate Luke Power said it had also been vital for Bradshaw.Its effectiveness has been proclaimed recently by several NRL identities and Green said the winner of Tuesday night's National Rugby League best-and-fairest award, Jarryd Hayne, and last year's winner Matt Orford, were also regular users.Retired Sydney forward Barry Hall also recently endorsed the product as a help on his arthritic ankles.Green, who is in the final negotiations stage for his blockbuster world cruiserweight title fight with American legend Roy Jones jnr in Sydney later this year, said he had been using PainAway for eight years and was convinced it had allowed him to continue to box at age 36.He said he was not being paid for any promotion of his trainer's anti-inflammatory product, which is advertised as a mixture of Arnica Montana flower extract, rosemary oil, eucalyptus oil, emu oil, ethanol and water."You name it, I've tried it and I've always been a bit sceptical because I've used so many different remedies in my 20 years of fighting," Green said."Some of them have had good effects, but I've never had anything that's had the same effect as this and I'll tell anyone and everyone the same thing that this stuff is the real deal."It's been a massive help to my career."I've got an X-ray that shows four broken bones that I've pretty much had for my whole professional career and keep breaking and re-breaking."If you're in a contact sport and you need to back up because it's what you do for a living and some days it's helped me back up 30 per cent better."Brisbane has been prepared to push medical boundaries for several years, with tactics ranging from the use of intravenous fluids during games and high-altitude hypoxicators, to flying to Melbourne in a chartered, low-altitude jet.PainAway claims to draw fresh blood to the area where the cream or spray is applied to relax muscles and nerves while promoting a powerful anti-inflammatory effect. It is also intended to restore flexibility to stiff and painful joints.Sports physician Dr Peter Larkins said the product had not yet challenged conventional treatments for soft-tissue injuries and he was sure it would have formed only part of the treatment for the injured Lions.Dr Larkins described it as "homeopathic"."They're all just flowers and flavours so from a scientific point of view in terms of a medical product, it's a lightweight product," Dr Larkins said."I'm not saying people shouldn't have faith in it and I've got no problem with people using them because the placebo effect is very strong in sport. If you run something on and think it's going to help you, it probably will."But I would be gob-smacked if that was the only thing the Brisbane players used and it cannot be given all of the gong because it would not have been the only treatment the medical and physio people would have utilised."I'm not canning it, but I don't think it will replace conventional treatments."WEST AUSTRALIAN
© 2009 The Age
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