Hi there,
can someone please help me with some question re vitamins I am wanting to start taking Calcium and Magnesium powder does someone know a good one I can get from I herb
Also Can anybody give me some advice on Bromelain and tumeric i have heard that tumeric is hard to absorb.
Lastly Collagen I have heard the fish marine collagen is better does anyone know which is better to take for joint and skin.
Thankyou to anyone that can help me

Peter Gillhams by Natural Vitality's Natural calm plus calcium.

Its a powder, and its great stuff. I use to take it all the time then I developed acid reflux and for some reason I can not take it anymore. But I loved it and took it for a long time before acid reflux came into my life. I got it at the health food store.

If you want a powder, I have used Ionic Fizz. It comes with a
calcium + magnesium version, and a mostly mag one only.

If you do Bromelain...which is what I am doing now because of my new problem (excessive bradykinin levels)...
There are 2 things to consider.

The regular bromelain types are not enteric coated to protect
the enzyme from stomach acids. Therefore not much is absorbed systemically.

LEF is the only company I could find, who coats their bromelain so it will be absorbed to act in the rest of the body as an anti-inflammatory. So if you want systemic effects you'll have to get LEF brand. I get mine now on Amazon at a pretty good price. Also it seems to be working. I have much less pain.

Curcumin also has poor absorption. There is Curcugel out there, and LongVida brand, which both have been used in studies with
good absorption.

Thanks Mrs D....Do you know anything about collagen

I know there are various collagen products out there.

If you make your own chicken soup from whole chicken parts (not just breasts white meat), the collagen will mix into the broth. When you put it in the frig, it will gel like jello does.
In the old days, people got most of their collagen building blocks from soups made from bones and gristle. Nothing was wasted. Today stores remove all those parts and give you
"dissected meat" with no other tissues present. Tendons removed, bones etc. So those nutrients are gone! One thing
in whole chicken soups also is the silica that is in the tendons...
our soft tissue has silica for strength, and that is also important for the joints. If you Google "foods high in silica" you'll get an idea of what veggies to add to your soup!

Just eating homemade soup like this that you control the ingredients and additives, can provide alot of collagen for tissue repair.

There is bovine, collagen in powders out there, as well as chicken. I really don't know much about them. Some people swear that collagen helps their arthritis. If you do decide to
use a supplement buy only from well known reputable companies. I think quality of the products may be the major factor for you in making this decision.

Hi Mrs D
Thankyou so much for your information I never new that about the chicken so thankyou.
I have found the life extension Bromelain which is entric coated it is $14.95 500 mg . which is cheap there was another for $40.00 is there any
difference also can you tell me how many mg do you take a day.E
The other thing is I m wanting to take SAM E can you plese tell me which brand is the best.
Again Many thanks
Warm regards Heather

I started at 500mg a day for Bromelain enteric coated. The first few days, I had some stomach/intestinal upset. So I didn't increase quickly. That settled down, and might have been because of my drug induced lupus from the lisinopril I was given for blood pressure.

Also the lisinopril increased bradykinin, and I had that to deal with...angioedema..where your internal organs swell up.

Now I finished the first bottle of LEF bromelain and I am more stable. So I am going to increase to 2 a day (1000mg) and see what happens. My use is different probably from yours. But I do see a general decrease in joint pain as well. (but that may be the reduction of the lupus reaction ...can't tell yet).

I used SAMe for over 10 yrs. I had a very bad right knee and after MRI and an Ortho evaluation, I decided to do the SAMe.
It is really good. Slow on joints, but good.
SAMe was developed by NatureMade to be stable and useful orally. So I stay with them. They have a $7.00 coupon you earn with about 3 packs or so. The price has come down in a major way, and Costco is where I get mine. Start at 200mg a day for about a month to see if you get hyper from it. That is the major side effect IMO. Take it in the morning on an empty stomach, and see what happens. You can get the generic at Walgreen's or RiteAid in the 200mg to start. Within a month you should see if you tolerate that once a day.

The NatureMade coupon program is online. Just search them for details. SAMe is really good for arthritis. And it really saved me surgery for a knee replacement. But that will take some time, so be patient. Some people just can't deal with SAMe...it makes them irritable, or hyper. That cannot be predicted so you just have to try it. At least now it is not so expensive like when I started it so many years ago!

Mrs D..Thankyou so much for all this wonderful information...I live in Newzealand so was going to buy from I herb not sure if naturemade will post to nz. Thankyou again

Then select a brand that comes in a BOX blisterpacked in foil.

When SAMe first came out, generics did not package it like NatureMade does properly. SAMe is light and moisture sensitive and degrades very quickly in bottles.

I worked up to 600mg a day in the morning before eating.
Wait about an hour so the SAMe passes out of the stomach.
I had it with my tea.

Start at 200mg a day for at least 2 weeks to a month. You can
work up slowly over 3 months or so to 600mg a day. 400mg is
sometimes enough for some people.

This is a search from iherb...
http://www.iherb.com/search?kw=SAMe&x=19&y=6#none
You can see the boxes... choose one of those.

I see the pet doses are now available on there. My old dear late cat Sheba took SAMe for 3 months at 50mg doses! It cost $24 at our vet for 30 back then. Vets use it mostly for liver problems in animals but I think arthritis too now.

Im a newbie at this but am learning. Turmeric is more readily absorbed with black pepper and oil. I have a good source of culinery turmeric and put it in a tablespoon with black pepper and California olive oil and it works. One site I saw said pepper increases turmeric bioavailability by 2000% but I don't know if that is true. My turmeric may not be as strong as refined cucurmin but it has worked and helped the inflammation of my COPD.

I am also trying to get quercetin and the bioavailability of that is apparently increased by bromelin. Im not fond of tough apple skin (where the good stuff is) but a tasty treat is apple put through a food chopper, add pineapple chunks and sprinkle with cinnamon or cloves.

There has been some prelinimary research showing the antioxidents attenuate inflammation in COPD and help stop steroid resistance. I got rid of the stupid Spiriva (yay! ) and am able to walk 30 minutes non stop without my O2 levels dropping too low for the first time in memory, maybe ever.

I know this wasn't your question but if it will work for me it must be good.

judi