glucosamine? any bad effects?

[mikem20]

im just wondering if glucosamine can have any bad effects on the body. my knees sometimes hurt after hard running and they never used to , GNC recommended i take this so i got a bottle , they said take (2) 750 tablets a day. i been on it for like 3 days now. its glucosamin 750 / chondroitin 600 .

[darkrelevance]

all i know is that its made from shellfish, so if any of you are allergic too shellfish (crab, shrimp,... etc), you might wanna stay away from glucosamine supplements.

i don't think ive heard of anything else so far.

[HtTKar]

I've looked around and cannot find anything that would scare me off.
This is the only website I've found that talks about side-effects, and it seems to me you could get these from drinking water.

http://www.1backpain.com/all_about_glucosamine_and_msm.htm

The very recent long-term study demonstrated slightly higher side effects occurring with taking Glucosamine orally(3), while another demonstrated that only 1% of patients taking the Glucosamine had epigastric pain/tenderness, heartburn, diarrhea and nausea(5). Glucosamine can be taken in pill or liquid form, administered though intramuscular injections, and more recently can be found in topical formulas. The effectiveness of a topical formula is dependent on the ability of the ingredients to penetrate the skin barrier. Creams and lotions usually lack this ability to penetrate, as they usually contain thick, non-absorbing, and often waxy ingredients. Glucosamine Sulfate is currently sold over the counter in the United States as a supplement and therefore not currently evaluated by the FDA.

[Uke]

Glucosamine is fine. It works okay. I managed a GNC years ago. No bad effects, but I've found that SAMe works better and faster. Glucosamine takes weeks, maybe months to work.

Truth is though, if you're already hurt, glucosamine may not help all that much. Most people should take it as a preventive measure. Also, GNC sells Tri-flex, which is glucosamine, chondroitin and MSM. But I still recommend SAMe from experience and from feedback as well. Plus, SAMe does 3 things:

Great for joints.
Excellent for the liver.
And is great for moods and stress.

There are more expensive, supposedly much better products such as CMO, but I have no customer feedback or personal experience with it.