QR Cream is very different to all other pain creams.

QR Cream is the first and only commercially available pain cream to contain the active ingredient, Mannitol.

QR Cream’s unique formula delivers the clinically proven ingredient, Mannitol, deep into the affected areas, to provide fast acting, long lasting relief of aching, burning or tingling pain.

The human body is made up of trillions of cells. The cells of the nervous system are called nerve cells. The axons of nerve cells are like wires that carry messages in the form of electrical signals to the brain.  Your brain is where you feel the sensations.  For example, when your toe is injured, the nerves supplying your toe will send an electric pain signal to your brain.  When your brain receives that signal, you feel pain.

This is how the signal is generated in your nerve cells:  Like all cells, nerve cells are full of potassium (K+), an alkali metal. Sodium (Na+) and calcium (Ca++) are also alkali metals and they surround the nerve cells. The + after their name means that they have a positive electrical charge. The walls of nerve cells have little pumps that pump potassium in and pump sodium and calcium out. These pumps make sure the cell contains the right chemicals and their electric charge is always the same.

When a nerve cell is injured, it opens some channels in its wall.  These are openings that allow a specific substance in or out, depending on whether there is more of it inside or outside of the cell.  The pain channels allow sodium (Na+) and calcium (Ca++) into the cell. Suddenly, there are too many +s, too many positive electrical charges inside the nerve cell.  That generates an electric current which sends a pain signal to the brain.  The brain tells you that part of the body is hurting.

We know that hot pepper, capsaicin, opens the pain channel, allowing sodium (Na+) and calcium (Ca++) into the nerve cell, which is why it is so quick to cause a burning sensation when applied to the skin or the tongue. We tested 25 people by putting a hot pepper (capsaicin) cream on their upper lip.  When the burning sensation reached 8/10, on one side of the upper lip we applied the base cream and on the other side we applied the base cream with mannitol. Then, for 10 minutes, every minute we asked them how bad the burning was from 0 to 10 on each side of their upper lip. On the mannitol side, the burning went down very quickly, which did not happen on the base cream alone side. After 3 minutes, there was only a 2% chance that the 2 creams were the same and at 10 minutes, there was less than 1 in 1000 chance that the 2 creams were the same. On the mannitol side the burning was gone but it persisted on the base cream alone side.

 That told us that mannitol quickly blocks the pain messages coming from the channel that responds to hot pepper, the body’s main pain channel.  How it does it and why it works faster and better than local anesthetics is not yet known.   Local anaesthetics also block all the sodium (Na+) channels, so they take away all feeling: they make you numb. In contrast, mannitol only stops the pain signal. You are still able to feel other sensations when you use Mannitol.

Menthol is a chemical extracted from the mint plant. You have noticed that when you are sucking on a mint, your mouth feels cool. This is because menthol acts on a channel in the nerve cells that sends cold signals to the brain. This channel is like a small door in the wall of the nerve cell that opens when it comes in contact with menthol or something cold and allows sodium (Na+) to enter the nerve cell.  This changes the electrical potential in the nerve cell: the Na+ adds to the K+ already in the nerve celland too many +s depolarize the nerve cell creating an electric current. This current travels up the nerve into the brain, which then generates a cold sensation in the part of the body where the nerve cell is situated.
In many instances, the feeling of pain is felt as a burning sensation.  The cold sensation generated by menthol is often able to compete with this burning sensation, which is why menthol is used to help relieve pain.

Menthol also helps mannitol go through the skin much more easily. Menthol has been added to QR Cream to increase the amount of mannitol that will reach the nerves that are sending pain signals to the brain. 

Mannitol is highly effective in neutralizing the pain signal and the combination of these two pain-relieving ingredients makes QR Cream a powerful pain reliever.