Did it surprise you when reports came out indicating that Ray Lewis may have used a spray made out of deer antlers in order to heal his torn triceps muscle late in the 2012-13 NFL season? Maybe it shouldn't have. According to a former Cowboys player, NFL players have been using all kinds of crazy things to gain a competitive advantage in the past—including medications meant for horses.
During a recent radio appearance in Dallas, former Cowboys defensive lineman Tony Casillas—who won two Super Bowls with the 'Boys in the 1990s—admitted that the team used to use a medication called dimethyl sulfoxide (or DMSO, for short). It's an anti-inflammatory drug that typically requires a prescription from a veterinarian and is used to treat sore muscles.
"When I heard about deer antler spray, when I heard that, I said, 'That's nothing,'" Casillas said on Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan. "We used to use this stuff called DMSO. That's what veterinarians put on horses, on a muscle, so this is stuff that you can rub, and we used it in the locker room. We had a bottle and you'd take it. It goes straight to the bloodstream. And I'm not sure about this deer antler stuff, but, I mean, it was prevalent in our locker room…It's an ointment that's like anti-inflammatory. You put it on your skin and you put it on a muscle, and I guarantee you, in about 30 minutes you'd feel it. It wasn't on the [banned] list. If you're going to talk about the deer antler stuff, we used DMSO and people knew it. Everyone knew about it."
So, there you go. If you think it's weird for an NFL player to use a deer-antler spray, just think about what guys used to use to try and heal their bodies. Pretty insane.
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[via Pro Football Talk]
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