Hi folks, I'm an osteo- sufferer and was just about to put away my guitar
for good about six months ago.  I don't know how much diabetes and
osteoarthritis are connected, but I had a miracle happen with me when I
started using a supplement for diabetics.  I have pre-diabetic insulin
resistance and was diabetic for 2 months of my pregnancy, and I had a lot of
OA pain both before I got pregnant, during, and after giving birth, which
took me to the doctor.  He put me on Naprocyn which took away about 50% of
the pain but wasn't healing anything or stopping the morning backaches.
Plus it made me sick to my stomach.  I was getting my scrip filled at the
local Rx when I saw this stuff on the shelf for diabetics, and since I felt
I needed to have a healthier carb metabolism, and was scared of diabetes, I
bought it.

The name of the supplement is "Advocate for Diabetics" and costs around $17
a bottle.  I started taking it to see if my body energy and carb metabolism
would improve, and instead of that happening (which it did, but this miracle
overshadows that), my osteoarthritis pain in my back, the stiffness in my
joints and the horrible swelling in my hands were _completely_gone_ in about
three weeks of taking it.  When I increased the recommended dosage to a
still-safe 4 pills a day (2 morning, 2 night), all the connective tissue in
my hands actually healed within a month.  (I don't take any other
supplements except daily calcium and the occasional gluco/chondroitin, which
I used to take by the handful when I was in a lot of pain.)  It has a lot of
B vitamins, which people should be careful of taking too many, so I
researched how much niacin I could safely take in one day.  I found out that
4 pills was still well below the safety limit for niacin, so I took it and
it works perfectly at that dosage.  Plus it has a few gentle herbal
compounds that are supposed to nutritionally support eyesight and
circulation, major issues for diabetics.

So if anyone here has a genetic predisposal to OA and insulin
resistance/diabetes together, I would heartily recommend taking it.  Both OA
and diabetes run in the family (mom/grandmom), so there is probably a major
connection between both in people with diabetes and OA.

It's been about seven months since I started taking it, and have not had to
increase the amount I take, nor do I have any more OA symptoms (except if I
stop taking it, and within about 72 hours my joints start to swell up a
bit.)  The swelling in my hands is GONE and I don't have any more "pins and
needles", popping tendons, or the constant pinging ache in my finger joints
that kept me cranky and annoyed.

Life is good, thanks to this stuff.  I don't know if it's been researched,
but it really turned around my life by accident.  Good luck, everyone.

alliekatt