Stopping Glucosamine

Glucosamine is a dietery supplement that has been used to help people with joint pain. It has been in the news this week because a review article in the British Medical Journal found no evidence that it was effective. For the full story on this click here for the story on the BBC website health pages.

The practice has in the past prescribed glucosamine but earlier this year we made the deicison to stop prescribing glucosamine as although it is safe there is very little evidence that it is an effective treatment for joint pain. We have been writing to patients telling them that we have stopped prescribing it. Of course the main motivation for doing this is to save money - our prescribing budget is forecast to be about £200,000 over budget and a no-brainer is to stop treatments that do no good - like gluocosamine.

So, once gain we are ahead of the curve!

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