I was skeptical about this stuff, but encouraged my mother to take turmeric for her fibromyalgia when she was having a painful bout. When she said it worked, I started taking it for various aches & pains I had & was very surprised at how well it worked. After researching it online & reading everything I could, I decided to try the Curcumin since it's supposed to have the highest concentrate of what works. I've been very happy with it & plan to order more. I have arthritis, carpal tunnel & tendonitis in one of my hands, so it aches most of the time. The same hand had a hard bump on the outside top of the hand that never stopped hurting for 2 years. I also had 3 trigger fingers aggrivating me. One shot of steroids in one finger sent my diabetes crazy & gave me the same side effects as oral steroids(yes, I know it's not supposed to, but I didn't know I was already severely vitamin D deficient & steroids leach the vitamin D out of your body-that's the only thing I can figure) & didn't help the pain or locking of my finger at all! So, I didn't go back for more treatment on the fingers or the hand, I just dealt with the pain & inconvenience - for 2 years. Soon after taking the turmeric, the pain in my hands decreased considerably. Taking the straight Curcumin, the pain is completely gone & so is all 3 trigger fingers! I also seem to have a lot of overall stiffness & body pain, grocery shopping leaves me sore for a couple of days. When I get out of my chair (or bed), I hobble like I'm 20 years older than I am. If I take the curcumin on a daily basis, I don't have a problem except when it's cold. Occasionally, I forget to take it for a week or so, then it takes some thinking to figure out why I'm so stiff & sore again! My mom's cousin (who's in her 70s) injured her knee & was dx with arthritis also, The doctor told her the pain medication would only help a little & she would probably need a knee replacement. She could barely get around, driving, shopping, running errands, or cooking left her in so much pain she couldn't get out of her chair & hurt for a couple of days afterwards. I bought & mailed her a bottle of turmeric, them told her how to use it. The recovery has been miraculous! She calls me on a regular basis to tell me she loves me for sending it because she has her life back again! She says that although her knee is sore when she comes home, all she needs to do is rest a couple of hours & she's good to go! I'm thinking of sending her a bottle of this. I really believe it's made a miraculous difference! Something I forgot to add, is that from what I've read, this works better if taken with a little fat. So, I usually take it with my dinner, with some bread & butter, or a spoonful of coconut oil. I think it does seem to make a difference doing this, UPDATE ($/2013): I quit taking this for about a month & I began to notice that the aches & pains were coming back gradually - including the trigger finger. Everything that hurt before is hurting again. So I know the curcumin makes a huge difference in how I feel! My neighbor recently had a flare up of something they haven't been able to dx. They thought it was Bells' Palsy & she spent weeks in intense pain from it before, with a swollen face. Not knowing what it is, the doctors were treating it as best they could, but she said it was barely touching the pain. I gave her a few days worth of my curcumin & she said it worked better than anything the doctors gave her, so she ordered some for herself. I think the biggest testament is my teenage son. He was recently shot with a high velocity bb gun that went almost completely through his arm from bottom to top & lodged in his bicep muscle. He was in such severe pain that the prescription pain killers the ER doctor gave him only took his pain from an "11" to a "7" according to him. He couldn't move or bend his arm at all for 2 days I gave him 3 of these capsules before bed, without telling him what they were for & the next morning he was able to bend his arm with very little pain! I continued 3 capsules, 2 times a day for 3 days until he refused to take them anymore. He has trouble swallowing them & the powder comes back up & makes him cough. The pain did came back, but not as bad), but he said he'd rather deal with that than choke on the powder. I had not expected the qucik action of the curcumin, I thought it had to build up over a few days/weeks, but with him it acted almost immediatly - and he didn't know what it was for, so it wasn't in his head!
