Glucosamine and chondroitin supplement

I've been taking them for several years since an orthopedist suggested I start. My knees do feel better. I've noticed recently that the store brands I've been using seem to be creeping up in price closer to the big name brands. Mostly I'm curious if the name brands are worth the extra cash and if indeed most people think it's mostly placebo effect.

Yeah, most studies suggest that there isn't much effect, if any. So I'd say to get the cheapest that you can believe will work as a very powerful placebo. But I think IIRC that if it is going to do any good, starting to use it before issues get bad will be the best option.

I've been taking 2 tablets daily for about 6 years now. My ortho was surprised at my visit earlier this year (I hadn't been in about 3 years) because the deterioration in my knees had pretty much stopped. I still have occasional pain and take 3 Aleve for that. I use Schiff glucosamine chondroitin with joint fluid.I get it at Costco when they have a coupon.
My dad told me that his hands had pretty much seized up from arthritis. He asked his brother (a bone surgeon) about the glucosamine and he said it helps some and doesn't help others, but that it wouldn't hurt to try it. It took about a month but it relaxed his hands and they are normal now.

We both use it daily.

Good Luck!!

In preface to all that is written below, we haven't plumbed the depths of DNA and specific human response. Perhaps there are individual special circumstances that some chemicals work for a fortunate few - but not the rest of us. If they do, use it. www.arthritisvic.org.au/Complementary-Therapies/Complementary-Therapies/Glucosamine-and-Chondroitin

As to chodroitin and the chemical processing of proteins and sugars once it gets past the tongue, it would seem that the same response could come from eating the entire shrimp and insect exoskeleton that provides the source for its manufacture. We are the only predator that cooks then 'shucks' the shells of shrimp and crab. We don't seem to be too much into exoskeletons either.

As I walk down the aisles leading to the pharmacy at COSTCO, I see that it is jammed from floor to as far up as can be stored with all of the 'alternative' choices, supplements and a few of the 2AM hypochondriatic insomniac solutions. I've asked how, as a certified pharmacist, they can allow such blatant pandering? Response: "I just work here I don't own the store." Recent studies (within the year) looking at the contents of supplements found in the big box stores, have discovered that most may neither have the ingredients specified on the contents list, nor the quantity/quality expected. That is worse than snake oil. No snake. No oil.

There are many who don't know or care what they are paying for and using. Many are duped by unsubstantiated claims and don't have the training or take the effort to make good decisions. Why would we need a pharmacy if all the cures for most of the ills are right there for the taking - without restriction. Rheumatism and arthritis used to be 'cured' by spending time in old radium mines in 'cages' made of the ore. Albeit some cures are more expensive (long term) than the prescribed ones. Those who take more than a multi-vitamin pill a day have very expensive urine or possibly rickets and scurvy from an extremely poor diet. A kind of diet one would see mostly in 3rd world countries and under extreme deprivation. But then those can't afford food supplements and would spend the money on a better diet.

If all of the uncontrolled 'super' drugs, including those paying Dr. Oz to pander them, really did work, one would wonder why the medical and pharmaceutical industry wouldn't be making money from them. Don't bore me with all of the conspiracy and hyperbola theories about the two industries. Greed is difficult to control but we can have a better independent USDA safety net that has some bite to it and a marketing budget a fraction of the quick cure sales and distribution organizations. If this is a safety net to assure food (and drug) safety, it should include jurisdiction over supplements and fully implement the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act.

What would we do without Consumer Reports? At times it is difficult to make a good decision even when all of the facts are presented.