In this video I'm going to give you my honest physical therapist review of Voltaren
for arthritis pain. Voltaren is a cream or a gel. It's kind of both that has an active ingredient
called diclofenac and diclofenac is marketed for use with arthritis pain. My name is Dr.
David Middaugh, and I'm a specialist physical therapist at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy,
and this channel is dedicated to helping people stay healthy, active and mobile,
while avoiding unnecessary surgery, injections and pain medications. We make helpful videos with
advice tips, exercises and stretches for a variety of body problems, and you can find them over in
our playlists in our channel. Please consider subscribing to our channel so that you don't
miss out on any of the helpful videos we post every single week. So let's answer some of the
most common questions that we get about Voltaren and diclofenac as an option to treat arthritis
pain from our patients and our viewers here on our channel. The number one question we get is what is
diclofenac and related to that people ask, is it natural? Is it safe? And to answer that question,
diclofenac is a chemical substance created in a pharmaceutical lab by chemists and pharmacists.
So it's not a natural substance it is a medication and if you purchase Voltaire
in which you can purchase it for yourself if you like we've got a link in the description below.
So you can find it on Amazon. But if you purchase it you can see that it comes with labels like this
just like a normal medication would and it's got warnings and side effects and all that kind of
stuff that you need to watch out for which it's pretty low in side effects and likelihood that
it's going to injure you but you still have to watch out and they got to be safe about letting
their customers know as well. And some people want to know what's the research behind diclofenac
as a use for an anti inflammatory medication and, and what we know about it is that it's a
non steroidal anti inflammatory drug, which is from the same family as ibuprofen and naproxen,
so it's known to be a powerful pain reliever. And diclofenac specifically is known to be more
effective when used to the skin, versus ibuprofen or naproxen. You can dig up on the internet,
tons of research articles, scientific research studies, about diclofenac and how it's been
used in a variety of different ways. anywhere on the internet. I linked in article for you
in the description below in case you want to go find that article where they reviewed a bunch of
other research studies that included a total of 3000 people in its use for topical pain relief
specifically for arthritis. You can find that in the description below. And what they found,
just to give you the quick summary is that it is effective. According to the research study,
they found specifically that it helped people with pain, mobility and functional capacity,
which means your ability to do many things sustained over a period of time. So if you're
dealing with an arthritis problem, you definitely want to be able to have reduced pain, more
mobility and be able to be on your feet for longer periods of time and be more active. Now another
common question that we get is what are the side effects of Voltaren and diclofenac for arthritis,
the number one side effect is going to be skin irritation, and it says that on the label here,
but we know based on the research that it's safer to use versus other NSAIDs, non steroidal anti
inflammatory drugs, and it's definitely safer to use than non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs
NSAIDs like ibuprofen, naproxen and of course diclofenac when taken by mouth, so those when you
take them by mouth, that puts you at a much higher risk for having stomach bleeding and intestinal
bleeding. But diclofenac rubbed on your skin like you would with Voltaren is definitely much lower
risk for having those kinds of side effects. I'm going to read you some of the other side effects
that are here on the box. They talk about possible liver damage, stomach bleeding, of course,
in a heart attack and stroke warning. So if you're over 60 years old, or you have a risk of having a
heart attack or stroke, then you just want to check with your doctor before taking Voltaren.
So if you're over 60 years old, or you're at risk for having a stroke or a heart attack,
then you do want to check with your doctor before using Voltaren. Now let's talk about how to use
this stuff. So I'm going to open the box for you here. And just to show you what this looks like.
I opened it already, of course and it comes in a little tube that looks like this. It says
Voltaren on it and it's got the same instructions on the back. Now this does have a safety lock on
it that I've already broken it to safety seal. It came with a little seal right on the top and
what you do is on the cap on the on the other end of the cap right here. You have like a key
that you lock the little star shaped lock and then you twist it off, and it's still embedded
in there. It's still stuck in there. I don't think you need to get it at all. There it is.
So little star shaped plastic piece that was stuck on there. I'm going to throw that away. And then
what the instructions say and it comes with more instructions on the inside. I have the box here,
it comes with a dosage card. So you can tell this is a little more intensive a over the counter
pain medication that you can use. And it's kind of this transparent card. And you don't have to see
the details. It's really small. But basically what this yellow orange bar says is, it says to use two
and a quarter inch long string, a cream or gel, whatever this is, I'll just do that for you. So
that's about one inch, and here's about two and a quarter inch. So that's how much you would use
for something on your upper body. And then it says to use double that four and a half inches
for something on your lower body. So I'm going to wipe this off here in a second, I'm not
going to rub this into my skin, I don't have any pain, thankfully. But it's kind of water based,
you can see that it glistens there, it's kind of a gel in a cream.
I don't know which one of the two I want to settle on, I would say it's a little bit of both some
other important notes. And the instructions are not to use this more than four times per day.
It also says that you may need to use it up to seven days to begin to see the effects of it.
And it does give you a limit of using it for 21 days or three weeks. And don't go any further
than that without permission from your doctor's what the instructions say. And one more important
note is don't use it on more than two body parts at a time. Remember, this is a medication and
so you can technically overdose on it. So you want to be careful to follow the instructions.
It's not a natural substance. This is a synthetic chemical developed in a pharmaceutical lab. So
you want to follow the instructions and not overdo it. It's not a natural substance.
Now to give you my honest physical therapists opinion, I would go for a more natural substance
for some more natural cream like menthol-based cream, an oil based cream, those are going to
be more natural products out there that may not have as many side effects as that cloth would
have. And before going to diclofenac Voltaren you might even use a lidocaine based cream or spray.
There's also roll-ons for these, because that's a safer drug to use are a safer product to use,
then diclofenac. That being said diclofenac is not the most riskiest pain medication you can take.
But if you're trying to stay as natural as possible, you want to try that stuff first.
And the other thing to note with this is this is only going to give you short term pain relief. If
you're dealing with arthritis, whether it's knee arthritis, arthritis in your back, and your neck,
shoulders, feet, hands, anywhere like that, this is not going to solve the root problem,
and it's not going to give you long term relief. That's another common question that I get is,
if I put Voltaren on my joints, will it fix the arthritis? And the
answer to that is absolutely not. It's only going to give you short term pain relief,
which is beneficial if you're having trouble sleeping at night. If your arthritis is keeping
you from walking or moving around or getting through your day, then you might use this
in the short term or be looking for some long term solution that might help you out
like the correct exercise of correct mobility, which we talked a lot about on other videos here
on our channel. I hope this video was helpful for you. If you thought it was helpful, please
give us a thumbs up consider sharing this with a friend that needs to learn about this stuff.
And please go check out our playlist here on our channel for more long term solutions to help you
out with your arthritis problem. Thanks so much. And we'll see in the next video friends. Bye