Arthritis since the age of 10: My advice to help joint pain. #AD

Back in 2014, I was asked to take part in a 12 week trial of taking GOPO rosehip supplements and to monitor whether I found them helpful for easing the pain I regularly felt in my joints.

Since the age of 10 I have suffered from joint pain as a result of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) or as it was known as in those days Juvenile Chronic Arthritis (JCA). Although it was my left hip that was most affected by the arthritis, as a result of years and years of limping and compensating for the pain in my hip, my backpain worsened.

After Miss T was born, I was finding that my backpain was unbearable. Having relied on pain relief medication (with limited success) for so long in the past, these days I hate the idea of having to take pain killers on a long-term basis. So I was more than happy to give GOPO a try.

But as I did so, I wanted to remain as objective as possible. I have tried ALL sorts of different medications, supplements and therapies over the years in an attempt to get relief from the pain so I had no reason to believe this would be any different. I kept a daily pain diary during those 12 weeks along with monitoring the various reasons that my pain level could have varied e.g. affected by the weather, had I overdone things, wearing different shoes - all these things and more can impact my back pain.

My verdict after the 12 weeks was that GOPO does work for me. It did notably improve my back pain. That was 6 years ago. Now 6 years later, many things have changed. I ended up having a hip replacement at the beginning of 2018 because the damage that had happened to my left hip all those years ago at the age of 10 was beyond repairing any other way.

I stopped taking the GOPO in the run up to the operation as they advised me to come off all medication prior to surgery. And I found myself in excrutiating pain without the GOPO. Another sign that it had really been working for me. After the surgery, I took the standard prescribed pain relief to get over the operation and then gradually weaned myself off it.

I didn't immediately re-start the GOPO because I wanted to see if the hip replacement surgery had resolved my back pain. Sadly it hadn't. So I began taking GOPO again and once again found that it made my backpain far more bearable.

I've stayed in touch with GOPO throughout all these years and am always impressed by the science that backs up their product. They also seem to genuinely care about ALL the ways that joint health can be improved rather than just saying that their product is the solution.

In the latest infographic I've received from them, it shows that looking after your joints involves movement, ensuring you are not overweight as well as using a supplement like GOPO with clinically proven results. All important advice that I myself would agree with.

Whilst this infographic is about osteoarthritis and JIA is very different to this, the joint damage that I was left with as a result of having JIA was very much in line with osteoarthritis joint damage. In those days there were no disease modifying drugs and so the joint inflammation wasn't controlled well enough by regular pain medication and my hip joint and subsequently spine became damaged with osteoarthritic damage.

One of the real positives that came out of my relationship with GOPO was a sense of regaining some control over the pain and over my situation. For so many years I had lived with, and accepted, the pain as being something I had no power over. The fact that I saw improvement by taking GOPO rosehip supplement encouraged me to look at other ways I could help to improve my pain rather than accepting it as a fact of my life.

I will no doubt continue to have good days and bad days when it comes to my back pain, but I'm doing my best to try to ensure that the good days outweigh the bad days and GOPO is my not-so-secret weapon when it comes to doing so.

The real testimony is that 6 years on from that initial trial I still take it daily and swear by it!

GOPO is available online here and from other good retailers.

Disclosure: I received GOPO rosehip supplement as a gifted product. All opinions remain my own honest opinions and I retain full editorial control of this blogpost.