Within just a few days of starting on it, I could tell the stiffness in my fingers was receding, and within three weeks all my joints were working like a kid's. The next time I was at the flower auction to buy flowers for our shop, which has long stairs up the buyers' gallery, I ran up them, flying like a teenage. It was exhilarating. I felt young again! And to this day I have no symptoms. Unless I stop taking the glucosamine, and then in a few days my joints all start scratching again.
It bothers me a lot that I had to show desperate emotion to my doctor just to be told about it. If I hadn't, she wouldn't have.
Apparently the reason is that it doesn't work for everyone who has osteoarthritis. Those it doesn't work for, it doesn't help at all. Maybe half the people who have it aren't helped. Which means that in some people their bodies have stopped producing the glucosamine, an essential ingredient of the slippery lining of the joints, and in the others, by implication, a different chemical is missing.
If I were a medical researcher, I would definitely look for that chemical. It shouldn't be that hard to find. And there's a fortune to be made there.
Likes: 8Atalla Kifarkis, Meredith Moeckel and 6 others
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Unlike · Reply · 2 · 19 May at 18:41
Barbara Green Stan, glucosamine works for me, and for my dad, too, so it must be genetic. I think because it doesn't work for everybody, some practitioners think it's snake oil. But as snake oil goes, it's pretty inexpensive (you don't have to get it at a specialty store -- it's in Safeway and Shopper's, etc.) -- a person can try it out and if it doesn't work for them, they won't be out too much. I, like you, notice changes within a couple of days of either taking it or stopping. My GP is behind it, but I was told categorically by a physiotherapist recently that it doesn't work -- even as I sat there telling him my experience was different.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:22
Stan Burfield Yes, I remember asking a doctor why they didn't prescribe glucosamine when it's so effective for those people it works for. He hemmed and hawed and in the end said that my cure was just psychosomatic. That a sugar pill would have worked just as good for me. Well, was my arthritis, which was so grindingly bad that I could hardly walk anymore, just in my imagination? That's crazy. Because if it was real, then a sugar pill certainly wouldn't have any effect on it. This wasn't just pain, it was actual deterioration of my joints..... Yes, it was an inherited thing in my family too. My mother had it, and spent her last years in a wheelchair. What a shame she didn't know about glucosamine. It would have fixed her too.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:36 · Edited
Barbara Green Stan Burfield I think you have to believe in the placebo for it to work -- I went in with no particular feelings about it at all. What got my attention was noticing after a little while how much better the joints that had been complaining about walking were feeling, and later, when symptoms flared up again, realizing I'd forgotten to take it for a few days. This has happened three or four times over the years ... Anyway, if it's a placebo and it's this effective, I'm happy to keep taking it. Did you get X-rays or other diagnosis of osteo?
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:35
Stan Burfield No. The doctor just diagnosed me by feeling my joints and asking me questions as she moved them. And the progression for me was typical of most, apparently, starting in my fingers. I had all the symptoms.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:39
Lynn Tait Find a new doctor.
Like · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 04:38
Donna Sims · Friends with Sharon LaFrenz
A physiotherapist wouldn't want the competition that glucosamine presents and doctors are always peddling whatever the pharmaceutical companies give them for samples.
Like · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 08:12
Stan Burfield Barbara Green Now that I think about it, my doctor must have had x-rays done. I just don't remember it. It's not the kind of thing I do remember.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 21:17 · Edited
Adelheid Heidi Toogood · Friends with Robert Gregory Seaton
Works for me! Works for my husband! Definitely worth it!!!!!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 17:40
Karen Troxler Didn't work for me. However, "Bodyguard" a Jamison product really helps me!
Linda Eva Williams Glucosamine was an expensive waste for me.
Unlike · Reply · 2 · 19 May at 18:41
Barbara Green Stan, glucosamine works for me, and for my dad, too, so it must be genetic. I think because it doesn't work for everybody, some practitioners think it's snake oil. But as snake oil goes, it's pretty inexpensive (you don't have to get it at a specialty store -- it's in Safeway and Shopper's, etc.) -- a person can try it out and if it doesn't work for them, they won't be out too much. I, like you, notice changes within a couple of days of either taking it or stopping. My GP is behind it, but I was told categorically by a physiotherapist recently that it doesn't work -- even as I sat there telling him my experience was different.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:22
Stan Burfield Yes, I remember asking a doctor why they didn't prescribe glucosamine when it's so effective for those people it works for. He hemmed and hawed and in the end said that my cure was just psychosomatic. That a sugar pill would have worked just as good for me. Well, was my arthritis, which was so grindingly bad that I could hardly walk anymore, just in my imagination? That's crazy. Because if it was real, then a sugar pill certainly wouldn't have any effect on it. This wasn't just pain, it was actual deterioration of my joints..... Yes, it was an inherited thing in my family too. My mother had it, and spent her last years in a wheelchair. What a shame she didn't know about glucosamine. It would have fixed her too.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:36 · Edited
Barbara Green Stan Burfield I think you have to believe in the placebo for it to work -- I went in with no particular feelings about it at all. What got my attention was noticing after a little while how much better the joints that had been complaining about walking were feeling, and later, when symptoms flared up again, realizing I'd forgotten to take it for a few days. This has happened three or four times over the years ... Anyway, if it's a placebo and it's this effective, I'm happy to keep taking it. Did you get X-rays or other diagnosis of osteo?
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:35
Stan Burfield No. The doctor just diagnosed me by feeling my joints and asking me questions as she moved them. And the progression for me was typical of most, apparently, starting in my fingers. I had all the symptoms.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 03:39
Lynn Tait Find a new doctor.
Like · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 04:38
Donna Sims · Friends with Sharon LaFrenz
A physiotherapist wouldn't want the competition that glucosamine presents and doctors are always peddling whatever the pharmaceutical companies give them for samples.
Like · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 08:12
Stan Burfield Barbara Green Now that I think about it, my doctor must have had x-rays done. I just don't remember it. It's not the kind of thing I do remember.
Like · Reply · Yesterday at 21:17 · Edited
Adelheid Heidi Toogood · Friends with Robert Gregory Seaton
Works for me! Works for my husband! Definitely worth it!!!!!
Unlike · Reply · 1 · Yesterday at 17:40
Karen Troxler Didn't work for me. However, "Bodyguard" a Jamison product really helps me!