The Cowboys did a lot of horsing around in the ’90s.
Former Dallas defensive lineman Tony Casillas said in a radio interview that the players on those Super Bowl-winning teams were using medication meant for horses and prescribed by veterinarians as performance enhancers.
Casillas was asked on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas about Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis’ alleged use of deer antler spray.
“That’s nothing. We used to use this stuff called DMSO,” Casillas said, according to Pro Football Talk. “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 called DMSO. You get it the veterinarian and it goes right to the bloodstream. 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 list [of banned substances]. If you’re going to talk about the deer antler stuff, we used DMSO and people knew it. Everyone knew about it.”
DMSO stands for dimethyl sulfoxide and is no longer popular in the NFL now, according to Pro Football Talk. However, in the 1980s it was in the news. June Jones, then quarterback of the Falcons, said in 1981 that he and his teammates regularly used the substance and he argued that it should be legalized for humans. Casillas, coincidentally, also played for the Falcons. He played for the Jets in 1994 and 1995.
Veterinarians prescribe DMSO for animals as an anti-inflammatory, but the FDA has approved limited use of the drug for people with a chronic bladder condition. It has significant side effects.
Casillas said DMSO “wasn’t on the list” of substances banned by the NFL, but he also seemed to be aware that using it wasn’t exactly kosher either.
“Let’s put it this way: If you’ve got to get it from a veterinarian, it’s probably — it’s kind of like getting Winstrol V, they’ve got to get it from a vet, but that’s a steroid,” Casillas said.