The OSMO Patch Story

Hi, my name is Danniel Jacques (B.Med.Sci UNSW) and I am proud to have created & developed the OSMO Patch. Having suffered myself, I understand only to well how painful and hard it can be to effectively treat joint pain, inflammation and swelling.

Personally, my first experience with joint injury was not that of my own but instead that of my father’s when he developed bursitis. This occurred several years ago due to my father taking an ungraceful and unfortunate fall during a family barbeque. At the time he was holding one of his grandchildren, and so as he fell he ensured that he took the full brunt of the impact as he hit the floor. At the time he seemed to come off quite well overall…. other than a couple of bruises and a few minor scratches. However, about a week following the fall a visible lump, or should I say ‘sac of fluid’ began to appear just under his left knee.

After perhaps a week had passed the actual sac of fluid in his knee had became so big that he became very concerned and decided to visit his doctor to have a look and see what was happening. His doctor told him that the impact from the fall had caused a condition called bursitis, and that fluid was accumulating inside a small sac known as a bursa. It was recommended by his doctor to drain the fluid from the sac with a syringe due to it being so large, as well as its physical appearance (even until today my father’s bursitis was among the largest I have ever seen on the knee).

I cannot recall exactly the number of syringes that my father said were needed to empty the fluid; however, I do recall how painful he said that it was, and also how upset he was when it subsequently redeveloped only a few days later. When he returned to show his doctor….. the doctor did not seem very surprised, but instead then told my father that he should now have a steroidal cortisone injection to treat his knee bursitis. It was then that my father became very skeptical and refused the injection. At the time I was currently midway through my Medical Science studies so he asked if I could research bursitis in the knee for him.

I should say that I was quite surprised to discover that 1 in 33 people will develop bursitis at any given time yet the options available for treatment and pain relief have not really improved for quite a long time. In fact, I found that the treatments offered were rather invasive; the medications often excessive and yet neither ensured any long term relief. In fact draining bursitis with a syringe or having cortisone injections into the area came with the risk of infection, further injury, or even a small possibility of developing an autoimmune response. In addition to this, there was also a long list of known side effects from receiving cortisone injections (such as bone re-absorption).

It was at that time that I recollected from my biological studies a natural process which plants used in nature know as… OSMOSIS. For anyone unfamiliar with this process, in principle osmosis is a natural phenomenon that allows the transport of water through a selectively permeable membrane from a region of low osmotic pressure (low solute) to a region of high osmotic pressure (high solute). Put more simply, osmosis is a natural process that allows fluid to be actively transported from one distinctive region into another.

I began to wonder if I could use this principle to remove fluid from joints…. so with great excitement I began my initial research, putting together a combination of harmless natural substances with specific physical properties. Once I had collected these I then placed them within a fluid permeable patch. I wanted to determine if I could actually duplicate this natural phenomenon of osmosis by placing the patch over my father’s bursitis to see if it would draw out any of the accumulated fluid within my father’s knee bursa. After quite a bit of persuasion I finally persuaded my father to allow me to stick this patch (filled with the natural formulation) over his fluid filled bursa at night just before he went to sleep. This was to ensure that the injury would be rested and the patch undisturbed for around 7-9 hours… and then I waited!

I’m really not sure who was more surprised… my father, myself or possibly my brother who had been watching and waiting silently with a permanent smirk across his face waiting for the whole episode to unwind with the expectation of a great opportunity to laugh and say I told you so. To the pleasing surprise of all (maybe not my brother LOL), not only was the patch saturated with fluid, but my father’s knee bursitis had substantially shrunk overnight, and following subsequent applications it actually completely disappeared.

The next encounter with bursitis came about a year after my father’s knee bursitis. This time my wife had developed bursitis, about the size of a walnut, just on the outer side of her right wrist. After an initial visit to her doctor to have it diagnosed, she was unfortunately persuaded that it would best to drain her bursitis with a syringe right then and there. As naturally we do, she trusted her doctor’s recommendation and agreed; only to experience what she described as absolutely excruciating pain.

Now I wonder if you can guess what happened… it actually came back the very next day!

Knowing now that she had bursitis, I wondered if the patch that I had made for my father would work again. So again I blended the natural ingredients and filled a patch, sticking it over the bursitis on her wrist overnight.

Yes… once again it worked like a charm, the bursitis in her wrist was soon gone.

Several months had then passed and by this time I was approaching the end of my Medical Science studies. Unfortunately, while I was preparing for my final exams, I had developed a bad habit of placing my elbow on the hard surface of my desk while I was studying and then resting the full weight of my head in my open palm of my hand (this was always on my right arm). As the weight of my head was constantly supported by my right elbow on the very hard surface of my desk, it resulted in a repetitive strain and irritation to my right elbow, which subsequently developed into bursitis in my right elbow. It was not until this time I truly understood how painful bursitis could be.

OMG…. this was causing me such incredible pain, yet I could hardly even see a lump. I can only assume that it must have been lying on top of a nerve as even simply wearing a long sleeve shirt sent daggers of pain shooting through my arm as the fabric rubbed over the elbow. I could not even sleep, because if I accidentally rolled onto it I would jump up in agony. In fact, I had no idea that it was bursitis and did not even consider bursitis as a possible cause as I was so convinced, due to the extreme level of pain, that I must have somehow chipped either my bone or had developed a serious infection in my elbow.

So off I ran straight to my doctor… to my surprise, upon x-ray and ultrasound, it was established that it was actually an inflamed bursa (elbow bursitis) and there was indeed no chipped bone or evidence of infection. Curiously, I asked the doctor what his recommendation would be for treatment. He recommended I should firstly take a few days off work (unlikely as I was studying and had exams) and then proceeded to write me a script for a non-steroid anti-inflammatory (NSAID). He also suggested that if the NSAID did not work then I should get a cortisone injection, as the small size of my bursitis meant that it was not possible to drain with a syringe.

I went through nearly a week of intense pain prior to seeing my doctor, however as I was so certain that what I had must have been either a chipped bone, infection or even possibly a damaged nerve, I did not even consider about the possibility of making some of my own patches for myself. You can be sure, after hearing the diagnosis from my doctor that all I had was bursitis, I immediately made up some more patches and placed one over my elbow that very same night. That said, I must admit that I also kept his prescription just in case, as somewhere in my mind I still could not believe that such a visually small bursitis could be the cause of such pain (especially in comparison to that of my father and wife’s bursitis).

To the delight of my elbow… once again a perfect record! Both the bursitis and associated pain completely disappeared.

It was only at this time that I finally realized how much of a need there was for my patches and hence the OSMO Patch was born.

Whilst my patches were initially developed for the treatment of bursitis it was very soon apparent that the OSMO Patch could be used for the relief of many other conditions and injuries that involved inflammation, swelling and associated pain in the joints.

The OSMO Patch is now used by many thousands of people all around the world and is a great example of the importance in continuing to explore natural alternatives in health care.