OK I've had 12 surgerys in my life, the 13th on the way and I ill consider myself very healthy. I'm 45 and play hockey 3 to 4 times a week. Related to my knee, 20 years ago I had ACL repair,medial meniscus removed and acouple orthoscopics done. In the past seven years the knee started giving me problems..stiffness, pain, etc. Five years ago I had another orthosopic surgery donefrom agreat young ortho, revealing a very worn out knee joint. He basically told me that if I was 60 yrs old, he'd schedule me for a joint replacement. Because the current artificial joints have a certain life expectancy, we elected to have injections to keep the pain at a tolerable level.
Three years ago during a commisioning project and long hours, my obvious limp was noticed by a worker. After a long discussion with him, he told me about glucosamine which can be found in the combination with chondroitin and MSM. It's no instant fix but after about four months I started noticing less pain and I am now pain free and have an extremly stable knee joint. I also have shoulder problems but it has not help since it rebuilds cartilidge. If your faithful with this everyday, it'll help but a good diet and keeping the weight down also helps.
cb