It is not true that studies done by pharmaceutical companies are not reputable. The only one willing to put money (a LOT of money) into testing drugs is the company that will benefit from the sale of those drugs if they are FDA approved. It takes a lot of time and many years to bring a drug to the market, and no one who does not have a financial interest in the drug will be willing to pay for those studies.

Supplements, such as glucosamine and MSM, however, may often be studied by independent researchers, because they do not need the animal studies and clinical trials that the FDA requires for prescription drugs. All you need to do a study with a supplement is willing volunteers, much less read tape and expense involved.

Bobbie

Animal studies on glucosamine have concentrated not on pain relief (hard to measure) but on force plate studies (measures amount of weight dog is putting on each limb) and there it does have good results, supposedly (I haven't found them yet, though.)

Thanks for posting an interesting article. I teach a critical thinking class so I like to have students look at the actual research on some of these things. One point that comes up is why do people believe things that don't make sense based on the facts, and one answer is that once we believe something we tend to ignore negative evidence and look for only positive evidence.

However, glucosamine is mentioned there, and the research there is not that it is useless, but in some applications it has not been more effective than placebo. One study on knee pain (OA) in humans showed 70% taking Celebrex had a 20% or greater reduction in pain compared to 60% taking placebo. Glucosamine was similar to placebo but depended on the pain level. I think research showing increased (or not) range of motion or exercise tolerance would be better than pain studies.

Bobbie

Glucosamine is great for arthritis but won't do anything once a disk has ruptured (I don't know if there is any data but it could conceivably help flexibility and make the likelihood of a rupture lower- I don't know.) It can't rebuild a disk.

First of all, if the alternative is putting him to sleep, use the Rimadyl. It can cause bad reactions, but if you do followup blood work and stop it if he has stomach upset its safe enough. It will take awhile for most safer things to be effective. In most dogs that have problems with Rimadyl stopping the drug stops the problem, and with bloodwork done you can stop it even before you see a problem. I had a Lab on it who developed seizures after a year but taking her off it stopped them. (That was before the need for followup bloodwork was widely known.)

I use SAM-e (400 mg) and glucosamine with my arthritic boy, and rarely Rimadyl, but I did have him on it for about six months while the others kicked in, and now we just use it if he does too much.

You might look at SAM-e (S-adenosylmethionine.) As a supplement it doesn't have the FDA testing behind it but it is widely used in Europe for arthritis and actual research studies have shown it to be quite effective both in humans and dogs for osteoarthritis and has negligible negative side effects. (It also tends to work as a mild antidepressant and has liver protective properties.) It's on the expensive side, though. MSM in conjunction with Glucosamine is supposed to be effective but I have not tried it.

The real veterinary drugs for arthritis are good, but you need to monitor for liver function before and during use (it might help to use the SAM-e along with them but I don't think there is any research to support that yet.) One thing to keep in mind with an older dog is that quality of life becomes as important as quantity of life, so if it takes a drug with side-effects to help, use it.

What I did with my dog is use Rimadyl for a few months while we waited for SAM-e to kick in (it takes a month) and now use Rimadyl only when I think he might have overdone it in agility. He's been on SAM-e for two years. He's eight years old and competes in agility. Two years ago, he was barely using one of his back legs (two CCL surgeries, one that didn't take too well as he wouldn't rest quietly.)

Bobbie

Is this diagnosed by Xrays as arthritis, and not something else?
If not, that would be the first thing to do.

There are prescription drugs such as Rimadyl and Deramaxx that can help, especially to get initial swelling down. See your vet. Glucosamine in various forms can be helpful (takes about a month before you see improvement) but active swelling should probably be resolved with some kind of anti-inflammatory, and there are stronger things than aspirin.

Bobbie

If you are sure Katie isn't part Lab, its safe to try Rimadyl. It works really well. Back when it first came out I used it in a Lab with bad arthritis in her back because she couldn't tolerate even coated aspirin. It worked great until she started having seizures from side effects on the liver. But that happens more to Labs (not exclusively, though.) I would use it (and am using it with Dolly) if you've done blood work to verify her liver is okay, and then watch for any side effects. Pippin did not show ANY side effects before the seizures. Luckily when we discontinued it she recovered fine and lived three more years on glucosamine supplements.