People often ask me just what it is that I do with all of my time now that I’m stuck in bed. I love writing and I count myself lucky to have been included in the Chronic Illness Bloggers network, and given many opportunities to try products I wouldn’t otherwise have access to. I have been given this product as part of a product review through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. Although the product was a gift, all opinions in this review remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company.

This product I’m writing about today is the Invigorate pain-relieving lotion that has been formulated by the Resonant Botanicals company. They indicate that their ingredients include essential oils such as frankincense, sandalwood, lavender, bergamot, Bulgarian rose and orange to make the lotion smell pleasant. Then they compound various oils to make it easy to both apply and absorb. Last, they add magnesium and methyl sulfonyl methane (MSM) for painkilling properties. What comes out of the bottle looks like this:
As they have specifically stated, they wanted to make a product that both absorbed easily without an oily residue and smells pleasant, and that is definitely what they accomplished. Out of all of the pain lotions I have tried, this has the lightest scent. It also soaks in very quickly. I have never had to worry about waiting any length of time before touching any fabrics after applying the lotion for fear of making any permanent stains.

As luck – or unluck? – would have it, I got a nasty cold that turned into bronchitis two days after I received my bottle of Invigorate. Perfect time to pull out the big guns and really give it a go. The instructions were a little unusual for me: apply the lotion at the location of the pain, but also apply it over your spleen (left lower rib cage – thank you, nursing school anatomy class!). So for about 10 days, when I could remember in my fevered state, I would rub it all over my aching neck and then my spleen. I did notice almost an immediate relief in my neck; I’m not sure if there was any difference with rubbing it over my spleen, so I didn’t make that a priority.

A constant problem for me is the outside tendons running behind my knees. When I wake up in the morning I can barely bend my legs. Outwardly they appear fine, but if anyone could see what I feel, it’s as if someone has inserted marbles into the tendon sheaths. At night the same thing happens; the tendons tighten up and it’s painful to bend my legs or walk. I’ve taken to rubbing the Invigorate lotion into those areas behind and to the sides of my knees, and within minutes the stiffness and pain will ease up enough for me to stop thinking about it. The pain might still be there, but really, it’s just an afterthought, not ruling my every move.

Lastly, I managed to plan my first plane ride since moving back to Minnesota in 2015. Traveling wrecks me. I have to get to the airport early because quite frankly, I never know what to expect. TSA gets all handsy with their pat-down because I have to get wheelchair assistance directly all the way to the gate, and I have a TON of medications including a few injectables that have to be transported with ice packs. (Side note: I wait until I clear security, and then I sling my Darth Vader-like vog mask across my face to keep everyone’s bugs away from my mucous membranes.)

The downside to sitting first in the wheelchair for a few hours and then the plane seat for more hours is that my tailbone area starts to really hurt. I have osteoarthritis in my hips and the head of the femur doesn’t fit properly in the socket, but it’s not the same pain. I swear my coccyx is trying to punch a perfect hole straight through. I stupidly didn’t bring the lotion with me on the trip, but you had better believe it was one of the first things I grabbed when I walked in my front door when I returned. Without it my pain was a hindrance every time I sat on a firm surface for any length of time for about 4 days at the beginning of my trip.  So as soon as I could when I got back, I slapped some Invigorate on that particular spot at the base of my spine, and after just a few minutes could feel it kick in and the pain let go. I’ve had to reapply it a few times because I went to a meeting the next night and was sitting on a hard chair, but it was so much better than what it could have been without that extra assistance from the Invigorate lotion.
Quite frankly, I was surprised at how much and how quickly this product worked at mitigating pain. I do have one disclaimer, and that it can’t touch the gnarly abdominal pain in my abdomen from my allergy to the shunt that runs from my brain to my peritoneum – but then again, nothing does, so that’s not a shocker. Invigorate did a pretty good job on my neck when I was sick, on my tailbone area, and I continue to use it on the tendons behind my knees. I would definitely call it a win.

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