Back injury / glucosamine sulphate

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: John J
Date: 26 Mar 02 - 07:37 AM

Thanks Guest and Bearheart. I've virtually stopped drinking beer (Aaaaaaaaagh!) and do plenty of stretching and other exercises. From tonight I'm back to the gym 3-4 times a week...it's been too painfull to go up until now. I've started cycling again, slowly and gently. Too much seems to aggravate the sciatica.

The scar tissue issue, oh what poetry, is one to explore I think. I just wonder what the physio will make of it all.

John

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Mar 02 - 05:14 AM

best wishes - let us know what works - stronger abdominals help a lot.

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Apr 02 - 06:56 PM

It has been a week, are you still going to the gym?

Be strong, hang in tough, you CAN get through this!!

Be stout hearted dear chap!

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 12:04 AM

The answer is here: http://www.ncschiropractic.com/gs.htm

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 11:15 PM

what has worked?

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: 53
Date: 05 Apr 02 - 11:23 PM

What are the side effects of this medicine? I keep forgetting to ask my doctor about this and it sure does look interesting. My back just gives me fits and I'm trying to get around having surgery. Bob

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 06 Apr 02 - 08:14 AM

Bob, I don't think there are any side affects, but if you are already taking different tablets, mention it to your doctor just to make sure, (some medicines are fine on there own, but cause problems when taken with others).

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 02 - 01:43 AM

Works great for arthritis in the knees, don't know about the back though.

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 12:28 AM

I believe G/C needs to be combined with vitamines C & E for maximum effectiveness

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: John J
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 07:46 AM

Sorry for the delay in replying folks, but the latest news is:

I've been to the Physiotherapist for an assessment, treatment starts next week.

I'm taking Glucosamine Sulphate + MSM + Vit C, Calcium + D + E (taken with a teaspoon of cider vinegar in a glass of water...ugh! This helps absorption so I'm told), and Cod liver oil.

I'm doing lots of stretching exercises at the gym. Up until 10 - 14 days ago I couldn't consider the gym, such exercises were far too painfull.

The result of this (apart from any natural recovery unconnected to what I'm doing which is completely unmeasureable, as is exercising, taking supplements etc) is that I can move! The pain has considerably reduced. I sleep at night and I can now cycle or walk to work without severe pain. Things are getting much easier.

The really good news apart from reduced pain, is that I am completely off Ibruprofen.

My movement is still restricted, but not through pain. I think the physio is going to spend time stretching hamstrings and build stronger back and stomach muscles.

Whatever happens, unless I have an adverse reaction, the Glucosamine Sulphate + MSM + C and Cod Liver Oil with continue.

Thanks for all your concerns, I'll keep you updated!

Cheers,

John

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 01:21 AM

The cod-liver-oil provides the vitamin A referred to in the thread previous to yours.

The Amount of Glucosamine Produced by the Body May be Insufficient. Glucosamine is an amino sugar normally formed in humans from glucose. Glucosamine Sulphate is one of the biological chemicals that forms all the major cushioning ingredients of the joint fluids and surrounding tissues. It helps make the fluid thick and elastic. In certain cases of trauma to the tissues, the amount of Glucosamine normally produced by the body is insufficient.

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 06:37 PM

I can't speak from inexperience, having had severe back injuries at 19, 29 49 and 60. At 29 I was hospitalised when I woke one morning with no feeling in my legs. I was taken to hospital and put in traction (16lbs on each leg)after a year of excruciating pain. I was a single parent of three children and had to keep working to 'survive".

Traction became a rack after 12 hours....I felt I was being torn apart and probably was.The nurses wouldn't take the traction off and much comedy ensued as I tried to release myself from the contraption. 10 days in traction and cortisone into my spine began to relieve it but I was off work for about a year in the next two. I wore a half cast (don't say anything ribald) for 12 months afterwards.

I am no shirker and work 'til I drop. Since 1996 that has meant earning enough in 3 months to survive 12...including helping my adult children's financial woes in an era of economic nonsense where the world bends over for the US dollar..money is being used which has no intrinsic value and US policy is enforced at the end of a WMD's.


After the last injury but one at 49 Spinal degeneration below and cervical damage along with 2 osteophytes created a bad situation and syptoms range from in ability to dress myself unless lying down to unbearable headaches with responded to nothing lasting 6 to 8 weeks at a stretch. After 3 years this began to diminish and I was doing hundred/hundreds at karate....refusing to be beaten.The obvious exacerbation was balanced by interest, success, improved self esteem and pondering a new culture which I now largely reject..I have serious doubts about the culture of martial arts unless one intellectulises it.

For 4 years having to think or listen caused such agony in my head and neck I became almost reclusive. I was taking 14 panadols per day half a dozen aspirins and 4 to 6 anti-inflamatories.At the outset, 1996, I switched to voltarin suppositories which were much more effective however for some reason I gradually moved to pills. In 2002 I was advised just by a coincidence, by a pharmacist, that 8 Panadols was maximum...that with what I was taking..'one day you might be just crossing the road and die of liver failure'. I eased back.

No doubt looking after my children from the time they were 8 months, 20 month and 36 months...from age 25.. didn't help. Carrying children and croceries is a back killer because it uses very unatural geometry and as well, in our ancestral days we'd get plenty of exercise swinging around trees and carrying no more than a couple of bananas...or a brat until it could be tossed away...but it was not usually carried on the hip.

Women carrying kids on their hips must be prime candidates for back injury. Apart from that..a matter I would not tolerate with mine...the little brats are permitted 9 times out of 10 at supermarkets and banks to run about screaming precociously, demanding this and that and create stress in the parent and everyone else around them. Stress affects lower and upper spine attached muscles and sets up the pain situation. In my view the transition from baths to shower cubicles has also been a factor.

This abuse of body and mind is particularly an African and white culture,seems a logical descendancy, such does not happen with native kids say at Vanuatu where children are often not with their parents and experience more of a village upbringing and even in teenage can be seen enjoying simple pleasures...like pushing a stick with two wheels on it, chatting and walking with friends...If a white kid did it he'd be be likely branded as a poofter-nurd and beaten up.

In closing on that subject a part of the chronic and acute suffering of whites is I think that we'd be close to extinction now were there no drug regime to call out and were we not (by advertising specialists succeeding) harboring fantasies about illness and malaise being fixed by long shot expensive "suppliments".

News of an unproven success travels like wildfire gaining momentum and quantum at every stage. Constant pain is not only depressing, it affets brain function and self esteem. Naturally we reach out however the glucosamine story is a fair indicator of how it works in general. Normally improvement starts reasonably quickly with glucosamine and then it stops or 'levels out'. It is very expensive in dollar terms which begins to create a new stress.

It may or may not improve cartilege but back condition which is typically a result of accident or years of abuse and bad diet has no miracle sure other than new parts, but one risks paraplegia or quadraplegia in the surgery.

Here are some of my suggestions:

1)Look at your life and see what you are doing to ruin yourslef..smoking, drinking, bad food, late nights, computer use, lack of exercise (8000 to 12000 steps per day is needed to maintain health)watching short attention span TV programmes with intermissions for adverts at critical points, driving long distances, not warming up before driving...and all the aspects of incorrect lifting and work positions, carrying heavy toolboxs, rolls of cable and so on.

now go cold turkey and just stop.

2)learn the art of slowly moving head back and forth three or four times then slowly side to side. The retraction of the head is the critical point and all must be slow an unviolent..ask a physio.

3)take 3 to 4 tablespoons of high quality early harvest EXTRA VIRGIN olive oil each day or have it liberally on salads ,only half a dozen olive oils world wide are of any such quality...world wide olive oil substitution and adulteration is one of the greatest financial and malfeasance scams of our era...continuing as you read this.

Viva, an Australian oil is very good but ONLY as early harvest. Cobram estate..Australian is another, Minos Kretes "Best" extra virgin and Coolavita..from Italy are the only others worth calling 'very good" and ONLY as early harvest cold pressed. You can presume all the other "extra virgin" are mediocre to awful and quite possibly through adulteration.

4) take natural cod liver oil.

5) many foods are to avoid including meat adulterated with growth hormones (chook and beef for example)pork and perhaps shellfish and commerically cooked prawns (a colouring agent is added, Avoid offal meat the worst of which is in hotdogs and frankfurts but often stuck into minced meat as well. Avoid religiously fast food and junk...try to use fructose or glucose in lieu of sucrose. Don't let adverts and kids dictate your health and theirs, Avoid "juice" Avoid gluten/peanut butter/Vegemite/Promite/bonox/stock cubes/packaged dinners of any kind/ice cream/most Pizzas...much too high in salt and chemically treated meat/MacDonalds/hungry jacks etc...avoid prawn sushi/unknown curry/barbeque and other sauce..in other words look to fresh unadulterated food whose quality you control...eat mediterranean style only eat what you comfortably NEED and only when needed rather than by the clock...

6)and where possible avoid Australian beer and wines...european beer is more protected against impurity and our wine is 999/1000 poor, citric, adulterated,acidic , tanniny and generally lousy. Look for wines which were not subject to egg and milk products, write to manufacturers asking for chemical free wine or see if your local jugoslavs or other mid europeans are making preservative free wine. Avoid christmas hams like the plague...these are injected with great quantites of chemical...that why they are wet and poor quality. By eurpean style ham made by europeans such as jugoslavs, where it is cured/pressed/smoked .pressed/smoked /pressed and so on...and is a dry ham throughout. The reason our national health is 'like sh.t is because we eat sh.t.

8) avoid soft drinks especially the dryginger and coke..if you want cola...Chinoto is better, if you want ginger, make your own ginger beer fromn fresh (not commercially powdered) ginger..but betetr to avoid all

9) avoid almost all fruit drinks...most are useless slugge called 'reconstitued with sometimes a chemical or several added. Demand and only buy pure unstrained orange juice. Definite n no is clear apple juice. Better to eat an apple, better to eat fresh fruit...I never liked it but I eat it..avoid bananas.

10)if using glucosamine I think in general the powder comes from fish and the capsules from beef.I'd always use the powder.

11) if showervig use a warm shower and try always to do a neat and slow bending in the shower with the water playng on you back.

12)try to have a bath at least once a week, exercising in it and also just getting the weight off one's feet.

13)get into and out of bed and on and off chairs slowly and with fluidity.

14)don't spare yourself in doing things other than being more conscious of warm up and sensible attention to your defect. Howling 'bad back' to avoid ANY lifting affects mind and body.

15) when using the computer often stretch and get the head staright on one's neck, walk about...don't sit there drinking tea and coffee..use pure/ filtered water...and remeber that bottled water is far from being pure....often far more contaminated than treated and filtered a tap water (whence comes most of it anyway..forget your ideas of virgin springs and shale filtered crystal purity or "spa"...that's the dream, not the reality )

16) walk at least 10,000 steps per day, don't carry weights or wear weighted shoes and do swing the arms.Sit down when tired but don't get cold if possible.

17) overweight is a back killer and poor posture a neck killer.Lear and practice god posture but in the meantime shed weight especially stomach.Try to get back to your 'best weight' Expect that to take 3 to 4 years if you want it to last, dieting is impermanent and more destructive.

18) avoid cortico steroids. I was advised this 35 years ago by the chaps who did my cortisone..three of Sydney's very best surgeons (Grant Newton and Carey)gave me their views and each of them had only two they would let 'near my (their) back'. I was told...don't have more cortisone and don't consider an operation until you are so old it doesn't matter if it fails...Since then have been advances such as disc replacement and advances in microsurgery but heed the warnings.

19)find an active interest (eg surfing, bush walking,scouting, travel...often on foot..overseas)

20) Only buy furniture for comfort. ...I would say one chair and lounge in say 500 is proerly built and comfortable. The neck should be well supported in natural seating in a lounge and dining room chaist should promote good posture but not rigidity.

21) meditate...and get the weight off your feet, often.Find a purpose in life.

22) unburden your life..travel lightly, minimise anchors around your neck...send them over the tip or if really valuable...sell them and walk away.

23)when invited to dinner tell them what you like and what you don't like...better to not be there than to getting a toxic overload...you can still be friends.It isn't ill manners to not eat what is put in front of you but it IS ill manners to not ask guest what they like and don't like. Why should I eat sheep's feet wrapped in tripe, pigs trotters, liver, brains, nose, muscles..things which revolt me just because you like to serve it up?.Why should I have a fishead in my soup or have to look at a pigs head as I eat?... Just saying.."by the way I'm a vegetarian but occasionally eat fresh deep sea fish fillet" can avoid a lot of that.In a world where one of the most polluted huge catfish from the filthy rivers of Vietnam fish "Basa" is now presented as "Dory"...one of the world's premium fish and more often than not the fish in "fish and chips as it is so cheap" you have to say to yourself "I am not going there!..I am taking quiet control of my life.

24)If their chairs are uncomfortable say "sorry" or ask if it's ok to bring your own comfortable one....you have one life and one back..take control of it in a gentle and firm way...no aggro is needed...and don't feel embarassed."would you mind terribly if I brought my own special chair along a bit early as I have areally bad back problem...I am used to it now.."

25)don't become a fantasy junkie..all the vitamins you will ever need come from fresh uncooked or lightly cooked food. As wella s often upsetting the stomach you simply don't need the stuff...use fresh herbs for a purpose...avoid foods which are "rave review" and look to the sort of foods our usually agricultural ancestors ate...which was not typically milk and prcessed grain. They didn't kid themselves they needed "energy drinks" and "athletes suppliments".They are and exercised.

26) if your back is bad try to learn new sexual techniques or use older ones you know which don't drive it into days of thereafter pain. Apart from convenient oral sex 'her on top' can be better for both backs if she keeps her's straight.

27)learn to breathe deeply into your stomach ..it relaxes all those muscles

28) learn pressure points..you can do this by study or as I did by closing my eyes and sensing the paths of the pain source...an incorrect point say on the hand can make back pain feel worse whereas one finger over can alleviate it. You might be amazed how competent you can become finding pressure points on hands feet arms and chest.Some pressure...eg at temples for head/neck pain should be almost imperceptible.

29)avoid osteopaths, gentle pressure treatment by a phsio is better and longer lasting...I know for a fact after numerous sessions at Osteos and Chiropracters. Chiropracters are without a doubt the lowest grade of treatment...no long massage even have the gall to take or diagnose from X rays, often exacerbating conditions while kidding themselves they are special. A good Osteo will masasage you for an hour or more. Avoid physios who use machiery..the precision and psychology of hands touching the body cannot be set aside.The Chiropracter is the worst because the body respasms soon after. What these people studiously ignore is that a whole range of factors including injury, posture, diet and mental state are what is affecting your body. Gentle vertebrae pressure is much more longlasting than spine cracking...and one really needs to ask about the long term efffcts of chiropractic...from a surgeon.

30)try to have feet up and the correct prescription glasses for a comfotable reading distance when reading.When fatigued or sore in the neck and shoulders, ..put it down and close your eyes and deep breathe. You will feel a sudden change in neck tension which will increase blood flow to your brin and enliven you. Bad body geometry is like having a car fixed with fencing wire and duct tape, it's creating new problems at the same time as holding other ones together without fixing anything.

31)avoid spirit drinks too they don't assist anything except maybe enjoying the taste

31 Don't forget your whole environment...dirty chemically polluted air, dust, exhaust fumes, construction and farmland dust, noise from those appallingly unecessary motor operated gardening tools...instead of using a broom for example... chainsaws, car horns, building noise, screeching tyres,spruikers, and so on ..all contrubute to your body response...blood flow, tension so use awareness of tension as a signal to reax, to breathe deeply into the stomach, to mentally allow aggravation to pass in and out, don't hold it in.In the beginning be aware of tension buiding up and use the night to dissipate what remains through unwinding mentally. Keep at this routine and one day it will no longer be conscious...your body will be protecting itself automatically

There are more matters for discussion but that's a start.It all seems daunting but in reality all of it can be readily accommodated in everyday life...but self discipline is hard and the body is addicted to the life it has adopted...like elastic it pulls you into mental and physical shapes and contortions...it takes practice to change it...but practice with the small things..denying yourself a cigarette, saying "I can do without it" rather than buying beer and wine which will only exacerbate your problems.....forget about those silly uniforms people wear to become part of the "jogging army" or the arobic dancers...just wear cool comfortable clothes which are your personality.Pay attention to foot massaging and only buy comfortbale shoes which are orthopaedicall correct...and yes that may mean finding and asking an expert.

We put ourselves into this back wrecked situation...over time or through misfortune...but look at it as a call to find a new life..

Cheers tony

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 07:32 PM

If my 17-year-old golden retriever could talk, she would tell you that glucosamine relieved her arthritis and that she's pain-free, but you don't need to know they give this stuff to dogs and horses. Besides you just got a whole course in holistic medicine, so I'll go take her for a walk now .......

CC

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 07:55 PM

I've guzzled 2g of glucosamine every day for about seven months. For all the good it's done I may as well have flushed it down the pan and cut out the middle man.   Sorry.

Subject: RE: Back injury / glucosamine sulphate
From: jacqui.c
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 08:45 AM

There can be side effects from Glucosamine.

I tried it a couple of times, Within a few days of starting use I was freezing cold and almost suicidally depressed. Stopped the GS - symptoms went away. Tried again about a year later, same symptoms.

Same thing happened with herbal remedies such as Devils Claw, I think it was caused.

This doesn't seem to be a common thing but, if you do find your mood changes when you're taking it, stop using it.