Will consumers favor a non-burning pain relief product, like Swiss Medica’s (OTC BB: SWME) O24 instead of Icy Hot or Ben Gay? Richard Weise, inventor of the patented O24 pain relief product talked to us about how O24 came about, how it works differently than other pain relief products and why O24 might just become a success story during its North American rollout to retail stores.
Interviewer: How did you come about developing the O24 pain relief formula?
Richard Weise: I started the O24 development thirty-five years ago, with studies in natural medicine. When you have chronic pain, people want to take some pharmaceutical product, which gives side effects. I don’t like that. I was studying to get a product that I could use, which would have no side effects. Previously while I worked in Germany, I developed environmentally safe cleaning products. I had studied Chinese medicine. I studied all the medicines for years: natural medicines, Indian medicines, European medicines and all the herbs. The Europeans, over a longer time, have been using more natural products.
Interviewer: How did this product advance from your studying medicines to its commercial distribution?
Richard Weise: I had this product in Europe and used it for myself, but it was not for commercial use. I tested it on myself. In the United States my first testing was on my English teacher. She broke her foot and had pain. I told her I had something for her pain, and I put it on her foot. She stopped having pain. She called me the next morning and told me that after six weeks, this was the first night she could sleep pain-free. A couple of months later, she came back to me and said, “Richard, I need two hundred bottles of this stuff you gave me.” I wanted to know why she needed two hundred bottles. I had offered to make her some product if she needed more, but two hundred bottles? She told me she had so many people she had given them a little of the formula to, people were asking her for more. That’s how this whole thing started in 1992 in the United States. Where it started commercially.
Interviewer: How was your reception, at first, with O24?
Richard Weise: When I first started with this, in the United States, people thought it was ‘snake oil’. I’m not a medical doctor. I studied natural medicine as my hobby. I don’t make claims. The claim I am permitted to make is that this product can be used for temporary pain relief for aches and pains, muscle spasms, arthritis. The FDA told us this in 1995. Before that, it was considered snake oil. I have customers who have been using this product for thirteen years. They are using it and they are happy. They will not use anything else.
Interviewer: Why doesn’t O24 give people the burning sensation one suffers from most other pain relief lotions, sprays or gels?
Richard Weise: Let’s take Ben Gay®. It uses menthol and capsaicin. Capsaicin is very heating. It is made out of (chile) peppers. When you use too much, you can burn your skin. They put menthol in to equalize the temperature a little, but it’s still burning. When you work out, and you put this on, your skin gets red. Tiger Balm® is a product made of camphor and menthol. Menthol gives a cooling feeling. When you have inflammation of your nerve, sometimes it helps and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s only cooling.
Interviewer: Why is it that O24 works differently from other pain relief lotions, gels or rubs?
Richard Weise: When you have pain in an area of you body, the temperature of the pain area is different than your regular body temperature. It can be higher by a half a degree or it can be lower. Some people put ice on, and it will not help. Others put ice on and it helps. The reason is if the temperature was too high, putting ice on it cools it down to the regular body temperature. The inflammation of the nerve is gone (by putting on ice) and the pain goes away. The O24 equalizes the body temperature, whether it is higher or lower. Automatically, this was a wonderful side effect.
Interviewer: Is that one of the major differences, between O24 and the others? That O24 doesn’t burn?
Richard Weise: Yes. That was done on purpose. With other products, people complained they burned. Some essential oils are very skin irritating. Therefore, you have to make the right formulation to make sure you have no complaints. I still try to make the product better and better, more efficient for the patients, for the consumer. I haven’t had any complaints. I have a complaint file and it has been empty for the last thirteen years, except one person who was allergic to peppermint oil.
Interviewer: Do people use this product on its own, or in conjunction with something else, like ibuprofen?
Richard Weise: People, who have been using this product for ten years, use just this product and nothing else. A lot of people over-medicate for their chronic pain. In some cases, O24 replaces the use of pharmaceutical products altogether. Some of the arthritis patients use it three to four times a day. Others use it once per day. It’s purely a topical lotion. It stays on top of the skin. You can not replace oral medication with this product.
Interviewer: Do you get every ingredient from the same suppliers, or do you change your suppliers from time to time?
Richard Weise: We pretty much try to keep it with the same suppliers. We quality control every ingredient. We make an adjustment every time we do a batch. After every batch we have to go to an independent lab for testing to prove that every ingredient we say and claim in the product is exactly what is in O24. Right now, we’re making a batch for 1600 pounds. That translates into 25,000 one-ounce bottles.
Interviewer: The big puzzle seems to be how the herb essences stick together without binders, such as alcohol or glycerine or some other additive. How did you get the herb essences to bind?
Richard Weise: It is because of the way I mix the product together. That is the patent: how I mix them together and why they stay together. Over the past ten years, I saw companies try to copy the product. They bought product. They broke it down. This is easy. It’s not a big secret. They made the product, but every time they were finished, they concluded, “This could not work!” They got nothing out of it.
Interviewer: Why does your O24 work, while the O24 copycats have failed to replicate your formula, if the ingredients are the same?
Richard Weise: They don’t know how to put the product together. There are no preservatives in the product. Normally, you put water or alcohol in the product and it stays together. O24 stays together without any binders. I put every essential oil into four groups. I have everything written down. The manufacturer knows my exact procedure. The results can be replicated without my monitoring the combining. The company (Swiss Medica) has all the paperwork (for the formula), and their chemists can replicate the formula. They can make the product in the same way. I have bottles sitting here that are thirteen years old. If I take them to the lab tomorrow, they have the same efficiency, the same main ingredients as the product I make today.
Interviewer: O24 has an indefinite shelf life?
Richard Weise: Yes. The same batch I made thirteen years ago has the same life as the batch I would make today. Actually according to the law, I can not say they have indefinite shelf life. We did a test for thirty-six months. We did a shelf-life test in an independent lab. They proved this product has a shelf life of thirty-six months.
Interviewer: Can you confirm that athletes and celebrities have actually used this product?
Richard Weise: Yes. I talked on the phone with them. I know Filip Gartner, the former head coach of the Norwegian ski team. I met him three or four times. Sam Walton’s daughter, for example, likes the product.
Interviewer: What do you know about the fibromyalgia testing that was done in Germany, using O24?
Richard Weise: The doctor bought the product from us. We had no idea he was doing the test. He bought product off the market, tested it and published the results in medical journals. He published this product and the test results. He published what he did without our knowledge and the results were excellent.
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