Pain Relief For Arthritis With Glucosamine, Chondroitin, Collagen Type II (and a Procedure For Out Of Control Pain From Compression Fracture)

If there’s one thing worse than death, it’s life with severe, out of control pain. For some, like my mother, joint pain from arthritis and increased sensitivity to pain (caused by opiate pain medication), can outpace pain medication and be an excellent source of non stop suicidal pain. (Update – The worst of the pain, not all of the pain, was not caused by arthritis but by 2 long term untreated compression fractures.)

Pain Without Relief

My mother had been going to a local pain clinic for a while. They took no proactive steps and just kept increasing the pain medication as the pain got worse. In early April 2009, my mother (75) was taken to the hospital for low oxygen and back pain. She was admitted and given morphine injections every 4 hours for back pain. The morphine stopped the pain for about an hour and reduced the pain for another two hours. Several days later, still in the hospital, some unidentified doctor told the pain was in her head. I asked the nurse why if the pain is in her head is she still on morphine every four hours, I would think by now the doctors would have lowered the pain medication to at least morphine injections every 5 or 6 hours. The nurse called the doctor. He avoided the question and wanted to move her to a nursing home. I asked my mother if she thought pain medication works better in a nursing home. She said no.

In mid April she was given a prescription for an antidepressant, for oxycodone, and a fentanyl patch and then released from the hospital. She never took the antidepressant and was already on the same amount of fentanyl pain medication for the last 4 months. Oxycodone and fentanyl are opioids (opiates). Consumer Reports wrote in their May 2009 issue on page 13, “Moreover, other adverse effects of opioids include paradoxical increase in pain sensitivity,”

Pain Relief Search

While she was in the hospital, I searched for a solution for joint pain. I remembered hearing about chicken cartilage for arthritis a while back and looked for supplements of chicken cartilage but couldn’t find anything. Then I started looking for the chemical substance in chicken cartilage said to restore joint cartilage health. A couple of days later, I found the name of the substance, “collagen type II”, sometimes abbreviated as collagen II.

I ordered a supplement of collagen type II and also manganese online. I gave into the commercial about pharmaceutical grade glucosamine and chondroitin in a product called Supple. I read about inflammation being part of the problem in arthritis and that omega 3 reduces inflammation. Perilla oil is 50-60% omega 3, so I ordered some perilla oil (but squeezed out the perilla from the large, rubbery gel cap). I also ordered Dr. Frank’s pain spray advertised on television. She was already taking a very good multivitamin (also has no vitamin K to help prevent blood clotting – search by UPC 076280476453.)

She started taking the collagen type II twice a day. She started drinking Supple once a day, but it’s very expensive, so I ordered a regular supplement (pill) of glucosamine and chondroitin (Biochem), but it seemed to cause fatigue and stress after a while and it was stopped. She took the perilla oil for a while but it seemed to cause fatigue so it was stopped. She took the pain spray as needed but it never worked. She also started fifteen mg of m a n g a n e s e each day which helped. She took half a capsule of magnesium asporotate every other day for months. She doesn’t take boron because boron appears to cause pain with compression fractures or Coumadin, not sure which (same for iron). What’s fractured from being compressed in a compression fracture is a vertebra (of the spine). Compression fracture is caused by osteoporosis or injury or some of both.

Results

Each day the pain subsided some. On April 20th she saw her regular primary doctor. He asked her about her pain. Her first words were, “I have a lot less pain.” He was very surprised and wondered if her weight loss was the reason. But that was over the course of over 6 months and caused by loss of appetite from so much pain. I showed him an empty can of Supple pointing to the chondroitin and glucosamine ingredients and told him this probably had a lot to do with her pain relief. He looked the label over and said, “Yeah this is good. Keep giving this to her.” I also brought a bottle of collagen type II but I didn’t show it to him right away.

The doctor who saw my mother at the hospital and wanted her to move to a nursing home also works with her primary doctor at the same office building. Unexpectedly, the primary doctor called this doctor into the room and the first thing he said was “Hi. You look much better.” He started asking her why and after a little discussion I showed him the collagen type II. The primary doctor took a close look at the label and smiled and said, “Keep giving this to her.”

Unfortunately, the primary doctor started her on weekly “iron therapy”. I wanted her to take ionic iron, but the doctor insisted “iron therapy”.

More Pain

April 27th Stopped the Supple and started using a tablet form of glucosamine and chondroitin. The Supple caused no problems at all, unlike the fatigue the tablet of glucosamine and chondroitin caused, but the Supple was too expensive. In September the tablet was stopped. The pain spray wasn’t used much after the second week, because had no affect on pain.

By the end of April (4/28), she experienced so much pain relief she didn’t believe the collagen type II, glucosamine and chondroitin supplement, manganese, and other supplements could have relieved the pain and stopped taking them believing the pain “just went away” for some unknown, magical reason. She also had her first dose of “iron therapy” the same day.

April 28 Had first iron shot. The shot made her tired and sick.

May 2nd Severe pain started to return which convinced her to start taking the collagen type II, glucosamine and chondroitin supplement (pill form now), manganese, and other supplements again. By May 7th most of the pain was gone.

May 5th After pulling out of the fatigue of the first dose of “iron therapy”, the second dose of “iron therapy” brought the fatigue back with digestive problems, so she stopped the collagen type II, glucosamine and chondroitin supplement, manganese, and other supplements again.

May 15 I demanded to know how many milligrams of iron are in each dose of “iron therapy”. Each dose of iron therapy contains 200mg of iron. Iron is a free radical catalyst. Free radicals cause inflammation, inflammation causes pain. The RDA for iron for people over 70 years old is only 8mg a day. The doctor stopped the iron shots.

May 17 After being off the collagen type II for 5 days, she was in a fair amount of pain but her stomach recuperated enough from the iron therapy to restart the collagen type II, glucosamine and chondroitin supplement, manganese, and other supplements again.

May 24 She felt great and unbelievably, stopped taking the collagen type II, glucosamine and chondroitin supplement, manganese, and other supplements again for no common sense reason at all.

May 29 The pain came back and this time the collagen type II, glucosamine and chondroitin supplement, manganese, and other supplements were not able to stop the pain anymore.

Vertebra Compression Fracture Resolution

June 16 She was admitted to the hospital for out of control pain. I called her doctor and explained to him there was a definite pattern of her being pulled out of pain during the day with pain pills and a few hours after taking the non pain night time pills she was in dire pain. He said that it may be caused by the warfarin coumadin…

….. and took her off coumadin and put her on aspirin (now at 81mg 3 times a day).

June 17 or so Talked with the orthopedic doctor caring for my mother at the hospital about operating on her back. He said the operation where two vertebrae are fused together wouldn’t help her.

June 18 or so Talked with her regular doctor about a show on The Discovery Channel on jelly fish the night before. The scientist explained that people who die from jelly fish stings die from the chemicals of the sting causing so much pain that the pain overwhelms the body (shock) and causes a heart attack. I reminded the doctor that my mother had successful heart surgery only 11 months earlier (one valve replaced with a pig valve – no bypass surgery).

June 19 or so Received a call saying she would have kyphoplasty procedure (essentially surgery).

June 26 Double kyphoplasty procedure went well.

June 29 Released from hospital, no more coumadin, no more compression fractures, did have a lot of pain at first.

Some people do well right away after kyphoplasty. It took my mother 4 or 5 months to heal. She’s still on a 50mcg of fentanyl patch for arthritis pain (arthritis pain is not compression fracture pain). She still takes the collagen type 2 and the multivitamin mentioned earlier, but not a supplement of glucosamine and chondroitin (may have to try another brand or take less, was causing to much fatigue).

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Collagen type II is also good for rheumatoid arthritis, “CCII is effective in the treatment of RA. CCII is well tolerated, and the incidence of adverse events of CCII is lower than that of MTX.” The quote and the meaning of the abbreviations are given on this government page: