Is glucosamine the best bet for joints OTC?
Ok so if any if you have seen any of my posts on here, you may know I am dealing with a bad shoulder. Quick background is in August I seperated my shoulder and suffered corresponding shoulder impingement, which if you don't know is an inflammation of the four heads of the shoulder muscle that travel down your arm. A cortisone shot and six weeks of no work or upper body workouts, and I felt good. Trouble is though that cortisone shots can be effective for months, and in the past month or so, my pain is returning. It hurts when I do certain lifts, such as dips or front lat raises, as well as machine flys, and a few others that involve a stress on the front of the shoulder. I can do military presses and side lifts relatively pain free, which makes me feel the problem is isolated to the front of the shoulder. So here are my options. If I go back to my doctor, he may suggest surgery, which he has stated may not even bring me back to 100%. This option is very unappealig, as my wife doesn't work, we have 2 kids and workers comp would be a huge pay cut for the duration of the recovery...so screw that. The second, another bad choice which I won't go for is more cortisone, being from what I've read you can't keep getting shots as it breaks down your muscle fibers, joints and ligaments after multiple shots. So I will try self repair. I picked up some triple strength glucosamine and chondroitin from vitamin shoppe.
My big question is has anyone experienced an injury similar to this, and if so, how did you remedy it? Is there something better for joint repair/lube (besides deca)? Any suggestions for ways to alleviate the pain when lifting? Any information or advice will be great thanks fellow eroiders!
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I just bought some hyaluronic acid caps to prevent joint pain while on accutane on top of test/epistane.
Three weeks in and no joint pain so far, maybe is helps maybe not. Looked promising though, and top athletes use it, but in injectable form.
I second the hyaluronic acid works great and pretty quickly. I have also had good luck with cissus.
I don't have any shoulder problems but I do have problems with my elbows. I went the glucosamine route for several months but it just didn't seem to do anything. Now trying the fish oil and that seems to be helping a bit. The best thing I found to alleviate the pain was to dial down the weight I was using. By using less weight but increasing the time under tension I still am able to get an intense workout and save my joints at the same time.
Try doing your sets with an eccentric of 4 or even 6 seconds and a concentric of 3 or 4 sec. Slow and controlled is the key. Your muscles will burn and your joints will thank you. It may not look as impressive doing side laterals with 10lbs or doing arnold presses with the 20lb dumbells instead of the 60lb DB's but the workout will be just as intense if not more so and your muscles will continue to grow.
Yea so on the glucosamine, I was told by my PHD that not everyone will see a benefit, that for.some reason glucosamine is an individual response...he didn't know why either, so fuck if I know lol...I just.got some krill oil, it was recommended here and by my chiropractor, and I happened to catch it on sale being it's generally about 1.5 Times the cost of fish oil...I have been using it for a few days now, and it seems to dull the joint pain somewhat, not totally alleviate it...as far.as.the weights go, like I said I skipped.shoulders for four weeks, but two days ago I did them and kept my weight light, maybe 70% of my normal strength and even though I hadn't seen this post yet, I did go for a slower, more controlled rep...good lifters think alike I suppose, and to be honest, after 48 hours I feel goodish....the shoulder is sore but not nearly on the same level...I have an HGH kit on the way, I'm going to run just 1.5 - 2 ius a day to start, and will be trying it out as a rejuvenating drug, not bulking, so I plan on staying under 3 a day unless I become immune to the effects as my tolerance increases....this is just a test and I will post another more detailed forum topic in the rHGH section when I start hopefully next week. I will run a link to it here also.
I forgot to add, Turmeric Extract does wonders for inflammation.
Inflammation is definitely an issue, I may grab some and give it a shot...anything beats surgery so trial and error on supps is fine with me...
Hey, if you need surgery get it done; don't try any snake oils to try and fix it. be safe is the 1st thing you need to make sure of.
It's not the surgery that bothers me, it's the fact that if I did have surgery, I would be out of work. I do a physical job, so def couldn't work, workers comp pays shit, and I am married with two kids, and my wife doesn't work...it's a financial problem more then anything. If I had an office job or something where I could still work, I would have done the surgery already and made sure I was fixed...it's not excruciating pain where.I can't function, or.work for that matter, so I am trying to self medicate, until at least when my wife starts working next year (she has one more year of school)...basically I'm taking one for my home team for now...
Your joint and bone health are not something you should be "taking for the team." I would hate to see you wait a year and be like my friend. He just had surgery on his elbow that knocked him out of the game for 4 months. The worse part was the doctor told him it would have been less if he came in when it started. Check into non invasive surgery or at least get a pro opinion and some xrays to see how bad it really is. Then you can make your decision based on what you see. Stay Safe!
I appreciate what you are saying, and if you were me and vice versa, I would say the exact same thing. I did see a shoulder specialist, where I am from he is highly regarded. My options were cortisone, which I did, and it worked for a couple of months, or surgery right off the bat. He also said if the pain came back, surgery was my next option. I had MRI's done, X-rays wouldn't show the damage I have (also I did have X-rays when I went to my first Dr., before I was recommended to this one by a coworker who had the same issue). The X-rays are negative, because there is no bone issues, only tendons. As far as recovery time, the time off is 4 to 6 months from this surgery to repair the heads of the long tendons in the shoulder, HOWEVER, in response to your friends situation, which definitely sucks, my Dr. did inform me one bit of good news, that there is zero chance of my issue getting WORSE, because an impingement is just an inflammation of a localized part of the shoulder, so THANKFULLY, that 4 to 6 month window wouldn't grow. I probably should have mentioned that earlier, as it would have cleared a lot up, but I didn't think about it originally. Excellent points to you though, and thanks again for the sound advice, that's why I like this site so much. I asked this question a month or two ago on another forum, and most of the advice I got was of the "no pain no gain" BS variety. At least on this site I find a large amount of educated guys who aren't into stupid approaches to lifting and life etc....
Ok then. Then make absolutely sure when you do get to that muscle group for a workout you don't try to be superman and overdo it. I know I have had days myself where the pain was slightly gone for the most part and I thought I could be the hulk again and fucked it up for 2 weeks. I have bursitis in my right shoulder and when it flares up I swear my muscles are on fire. It flares when I aggravate it but for about a month now I have been like the kid who burned his hand on the hot stove. I pick up the weight and then step back and my brain asks me if I want to burn myself again lol. It does suck to be the breadwinner and even losing 100 bucks makes you have to move things around for a week. Whatever decision you make think of yourself first and foremost, and it would be even harder to support a family dead right? Although with my life insurance I am worth more dead then alive; maybe that's why I wake up in the middle of the night and find my wife staring at me with eyes glazed over huh?
HAHA that's funny about the wife...see in my situation, it would be less than half of my normal earnings, that's why I'm trying to just push through til the end of the year when my wife finishes up. I definitely still treat it gingerly, and whenever work prohibits me from making it to the gym for an unplanned off day, my shoulders get skipped. On the completely odd side of this, which I cannot explain, my shoulders are without a doubt my best looking body part, so training them light, and skipping them here and there is actually not a bad thing, as they never seem to lag...go figure right?
thats what I like to call irony
Glucosamine, MSM, Hylauronic acid and heavy dosing of fish oils for my joints...
You may also want to look into TB-500 peptide but I personally have no experience with it.. I would just do a search for it on this website and see what others say.
Also some short clips I found very helpful and have used myself..
http://www.eroids.com/forum/sports-talk/bodybuilding-powerlifting-strong...
Enjoy and good luck brother.
Thank you...I also have tried Hylauronic acid, my chiropractor advised it after I suffered a back injury golfing...yes golfing at 30 I hurt my back, my wife wouldn't let me live that one down...I just checked the label my glucosamine has MSM also, I know some do and some don't but this one does...great feedback, I am going to get some more fish oil and dose it much higher and see if that does help. Thank you
I've been looking at fish oil the past week or so.You should check out krill oil.
I have but I think it's very expensive, although it did come highly recommended from my child in addition to the hyaluronic acid.
I use knox nutrajoint for my joints.
Does it lube you up, or just remove tension? My shoulder is slightly dry as I get a lot of cracking in it, but not my other shoulder, knees, elbows etc...
It stops the pain in my knees and hips.
If all else fails try using Horse Liniment, no joke. Cy Young was known for using it after ever game. WARNING: Be sure to find a liniment that does NOT contain DMSO. This one is not safe for human use. You can find it at any farm supply store.
Sounds interesting!!
I have never even heard of it, but hey, if it can get Cy Young to win 500 plus games, there is something to be said about its effectiveness on the shoulder...I will do some research on this sup for sure
Ive never injured my shoulder but started having pains very similar to what your dealing with. I end up backing the weights down and removed the exercises that caused me the most pain for about a month. Now im starting to work the weight back up and add those movements back into my workout. Feeling much better.
Yea I did try that too. I stopped doing shoulders altogether as soon as I started feeling pain again, and I just trained them on Tuesday, now I am sore going on 4 days, not muscular sore, but a pain sore. I will have to try to dial the weights down, its hard though, being when I am actually lifting, I don't seem to notice any pain, just tightness, almost a muscle cramp feeling. It is a battle of mind over will, its embarrassing to do 20lb dumb bell front raises, when I am used to doing 50 lbs, but maybe that's what it takes to put the strength back into the shoulder. I will try doing this, thank you for your input bro
Fish oil; 1200-1600 a day.
Glucosimine; 2000mg a day
Stretching; 10 minutes before workout. I found this to work extremely well in my recovery. My right arm was constantly hurting to the point my workouts suffered. I started doing stretches and taking those supps and the pain is almost gone.
I was using fish oil for a little while, but I didn't seem to notice any effects one way or the other, even at 2000mg. Maybe it was the brand, or the amount of epa...but glucosamine does help SOMEWHAT...I do stretch my shoulder every workout, I will do a ten minute warmup on the treadmill just to increase my heart rate, while performing shoulder stretches the whole time. Maybe I will try another brand of fish oil, hopefully that works out.
I'm not able to take 2000mg dly. It seems to cause swelling in some of my joints, especially my hands. I always recommend starting 500mg and working up. Just my experience.