LivCorp Inc’s Delivra, the company that makes LivRelief homeopathic pain relief cream, claims that its product relieves arthritis pain by delivering the active ingredient, a topical analgesic called Ruta 3X through a new process also called Delivra ™.

I’ll be upfront, here: I’ve always been seriously skeptical about homeopathic remedies. But I agreed to try LivRelief cream and review it because, well, as someone who’s lived with rheumatoid arthritis for close to a quarter century, I still dream of finding something—anything—that might relieve the pain this intractable autoimmune disease causes. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, LivRelief cream will be the one.

Since it came in the mail, I’ve used LivRelief cream several times on mild-to-moderately painful RA-inflamed joints in my hands, fingers and wrists. I’ve also used it at the base of my small toes on my left foot and on my right knee. Finally, I’ve tried the cream on both my hips. They ache frequently—and almost constantly—from RA’s co-morbid condition, trochanteric bursitis, and I figured why not?

That first time, I tried it on my hands and wrists. Within 10 minutes of using the recommended amount of cream—two short squirts from the pump-bottle—the sharp, twingy pain I was experiencing eased up. A couple of minutes later it was completely gone. As a nice bonus, the cream made my skin feel well-moisturized and silky-soft.

Whoa, thought I. This stuff works!

I was delighted—and genuinely surprised. I’ve tried and tossed out so many topical pain relievers over the years. Most of them had either capsicum (cayenne pepper) or menthol as the active ingredients in them. The menthol ones were pleasant but had no “relieving” effect on my pain. The ones with capsicum added the intense sensation of scorching, blistering skin to the already aching joints that lay just beneath it. I always ended up washing it off. Frantically.

So, discovering that LivRelief cream worked was wonderful.

Unfortunately, it only worked that one time. When I tried it again on my hands the next day, nothing but softened skin happened. LivRelief also had no effect on the small joints at the base of my toes, or on my knees. Finally, it did nothing for the bursitis pain in my hips.

Well, except for softening and moisturizing my skin.

Why did it seem to work that first time? I really don’t know. Maybe the pain in my hands would have gone away shortly, anyway. Rheuma is weird—the pain almost always comes and goes suddenly and without reason or warning. One time the flare will last three minutes, the next time, three-quarters of a day. Or maybe the gentle massage I gave my joints as I was rubbing the cream into my skin helped to relieve the pain.

Here’s what I know: the cream worked miraculously well once, but my wily old rheuma-dragon figured out how to overcome and disable the beneficial effect after that, no matter which joint or part of my body I used it on.

So, do I recommend that you try LivRelief cream on your achy, painful RA joints? The legendary hockey star Bobby Orr certainly does, stating on the website PRWeb that “LivRelief has improved my quality of life … I would recommend it to anyone suffering with pain.”

You can purchase the cream online in its 2 oz. pump bottle through Amazon for $27.86 or GNC for $29.99.