Replied by Ted (Bangkok, Thailand)

MSM has an interesting history, in the field of arthritis and the most well known is James Coburn the actor who tried to treat arthritis for year and was actually cured using it. And of course, as media and big business would have it, they silenced him about what supplements he used to cure arthritis. What MSM really does is quite interesting, (as well as chelation using EDTA), in that the cause of "cross linked" collagen - a more complicated language of wrinkled skin! Is in fact due to two conditions, excess blood sugar and heavy metals causes the skin and joints to be inflexible. Therefore, taking MSM and possibly DMSO (they stink) will restore and rid the body of aluminum and heavy metals which causes it.

If there is possibility of high blood sugar, simply go on a diet of low glycemic indexed food. That means sugar free diet, especially away from sugar, softdrinks, pastries, and high fat. In fact eating high fats especially fried food can really shoot up the insulin and sugar that causes arthritis. The other findings is that boron supplements will help arthritis is well known in normalizing calcium and magnesium ratios. Vitamin D3 is very helpful for arthritis too. Taking chicken collagen (the cartilage from young chickens breastbone) you can get from Knox chicken gelatin, I think and also helpful. Collagen is what keeps your body from falling apart.

Last but not least, try to get some aloe vera oil and evening primrose oil. You need only to apply on your hands once every 3-4 days and your skin should be improved. The other simple way is plain old vinegar. Applying it to the hands should help the skin at least restore some suppleness. I don't know why it does this, but I suspect it removes some calcium buildup and heavy metals from the skin. You should see the results somewhat the next day for comparison purposes. Vitamin C is also important for collagen synthesis also and taking this with vitamin E and fish oils, can also help the joints movement and reduce some pain too. A newer way is to try DHEA, this will restore your skin entirely, but if you just want it for your hands, then perhaps try to get a tablet of DHEA and mix that with vitamin E for example and apply to your hands. THis might help and in fact there actually a DHEA hand cream somewhere, but you don't need to go get it, just make a simple one as mentioned here. I must mentioned a little bit about vitamin D3 or vitamin D4 (higher quality) in that certain conditions of arthritis is in fact a vitamin D deficiency. What kinds of vitamin you use can make a difference, a preferred one, if you can get one is D4, however it appears that in U.S. you require a prescription. At a place where I live I cannot obtain this, so I just went with the lower quality vitamin D2, and the usual dose at least for my friends and relative is 20,000 I.U. per day for only 30 days, then stop. There is growing evidence that colloidal silver is helpful to arthritis. But once you are "cured", you need to stop using it. Now why does colloidal silver cure arthritis Will a little unknown reason that most people do not know is that in presence of silver the cells de-differentiated, in simple language, it is an equivalent of creating stem cells. Now once they become de-differentiated, the cells can regenerate the arthritis conditions. If you fear of agyria from silver use, then after you gotten better, just take plenty of vitamin C, E, and selenium. They will generally remove the agyria problem for some people who do have it. I couldn't cover everything about arthritis, but this is just the major ways to deal with it.