The actor James Coburn died the other day. I didn’t know it, but he suffered rheumatoid arthritis bad enough to make him give up his film career, until - as I read in the Times today - he cured himself with a ‘sulphur-based pill’. That’s ‘cured’ by his own account, not the word of some quack or pill salesman.
A little Googling showed that this pill was MSM (Methyl Sulfonyl Methane).
Can any Dopers back Coburn up on this? My mum was recently diagnosed with the same illness, am wondering if this might be worth seriously looking into.
My husband was practically in tears from shoulder pain (attributed to Arthritis). He started taking MSM with Glucosomine and has since started doing 140 pushups a day. He then started experiencing minor pain again (probably from the push-ups?), so he’s added another supplement to the cocktail: Chondroitin. It is also supposed to really help, but the jury is still out. I actually believe in the benefits of these pills; and I’m usually pretty skeptical.
Many horsepeople give it to their horses with mild arthritis. Supposedly it has mild anti-inflammatory properties and, the sulphur is supposedly good for the joint itself. It works for some and not for others, like all supplements. The good news is, it is quite a bit cheaper than Glucosamine/Chondritin.
An old friend of mine (now passed away) had pretty bad arthritis and was generally a bit skeptic about “alternative” medicines. But he said he found relief from MSM. I believe he was able to reduce some of his pain medications due to MSM, or at least he didn’t have as much discomfort between doses of pain medication. (He was always in pain, and the prescription medicine really didn’t help much. But MSM did.)