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Lead Stories: Friday, August 29, 2008

TFS Review: Boiron Arnica Gel

Posted January 18th, 2007 at 8:00 AM by Valerie Cerami

Section: Running & Training, Injury & Rehab, Gear & Apparel, Product Reviews, Sports Medicine, Special Features, Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, TFS Reviews

If you’d like to try a holistic approach to muscle soreness, you should give Boiron’s Arnica Gel a try. We found it to have a far superior odor than traditional favorites (i.e. - IcyHot), but yet often more effective for pain relief. Below are the results of TFS’s product testing, small-scale double-blind trials, and overall review.

Product: Boiron’s Arnica Gel
Price: $5.76 (1.5 oz.); $9.12 (2.5 oz.)
Rating: Very Good 7.8/10.0
Pros: Non-greasy; very mild smell; all-natural; quickly absorbed; effective on mild muscle pain and soreness
Cons: More expensive than traditional remedies; comes in tube instead of a more convenient “roll-on” form
Overall: Very good choice for runner’s to use at home for reducing muscle soreness and helping to prevent injuries without the offensive odor inherent to analgesics like Icy Hot and Tiger Balm.

The arnica gel that we tested is made by Boiron, a major manufacturer of homeopathic products. Homeopathic medicines use therapeutically active micro-doses of mineral, botanical, and biological substances. Homeopathy has been used for hundreds of years and is currently recommended to millions by health-care providers around the world.

Arnica is an all-natural treatment option that is marketed by Boiron, and many other holistic manufacturers, for the relief of: stiffness, aches and pains, muscle soreness, swelling and discoloration from bruises, and other minor ailments.
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Arnica: the natural alternative for treating sore muscles

Posted December 1st, 2006 at 7:00 AM by Jenna Sumara

Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab

As runners and athletes’ we all tend to experience pain of some sort and eliminating that pain is often our #1 priority. This is especially true if it prevents you from continuing your regular training program. Traditional pain treatment options like Tylenol and Advil are quite reliable but also can lead to some serious, long-term damage to your liver or stomach. However, there is another lesser known pain relief treatment product called Arnica that is starting to gain momentum among runners for treating muscle soreness.

Arnica (or by its scientific name, Arnica Montana or referred to as leopard’s bane) is a flower generally grown in the western states of the US and originally hails from Central Europe. Discovered by Europeans in the 16th century, Arnica has long been used as a holistic treatment Read the rest of this entry »

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