The surgeon who operated on my shoulder recommended glucosamine. Interestingly, his younger medical assistant grimaced and said glucosamine doesn't do anything (on a separate occasion, when surgeon wasn't in the room). I take it anyway.

It really seemed to help the dog, and I feel like they aren't susceptible to the placebo effect. All he knew is that he was getting peanut butter.

The hip and joint supplement that worked so well for Harvey has glucosamin, chondroitin, and MSM.

May the force of cranberry be with you, Zen.

Moving from Natter:

Ugh, Zen, Talk about insult to injury. (Dammit, my phone has started capitalizing the first word after a comma and I don't know why and it drives me bonkers.

Scrappy, house~ma! Can't wait to see pics.

WS, IANAD, but I found this site on angular cheilitis - [link] Have you been checked for thrush? (Saw your response in Natter)

Another day of brick and ladder Jenga at work. We are short-staffers and my boss is preggers, so abfriend of ours has come in from Mississippi to help. Excited to learn stuff from him. And my boss told me today that she's going to need more of my help starting pretty much immediately. Good for my cash flow, tricky for getting my own work done in a timely manner.

smonster, the big symptom of thrush is the white rash inside the mouth. The doctor did not say specifically that she was looking for signs of thrush when she had me open my mouth, but if there were some, that was her opportunity to see them. For what it's worth, the only symptom I have that matches the symptoms of thrush are the cracks in the corners of my mouth.

Fwiw, though, when I had thrush the only symptoms were a cough and chelitis. The white rash wasn't visible. The first doctor I saw totally missed it.

Yeah, I'm wondering if there can be subclinical thrush, where you don't have all the symptoms (even the classic one of white tongue), but have some "lesser" symptoms that persist.

Would thrush cause a harsh reaction to an anti-fungal cream? I think the main reason the doc went with an antibiotic instead of starting with an anti-fungal or going with both is that every anti-fungal remedy I have tried - proper OTC cream or home remedy (except for colloidal silver, but I was not about to mention that to some doctor I don't know) - caused the rash to get worse rather than better.

ETA In the case of the otc antifungal cream, after it caused the rash to turn bright red and start bleeding, I did a patch test first on the inside of my elbow and then on the side of my face about two inches from my mouth. No reaction. So I'm not allergic. Maybe the thrush has taken over so much of the skin at the corners of my mouth and surrounding tissue that IT is all that's there, and IT is reacting in hyperpanic mode to the antifungal cream?

That sounds like an allergic reaction, rather than the thrush (or whatever it is) causing the reaction. I wonder if there's an ingredient that the topical treatments have in common that you reacted poorly to.

I wish there were a straightforward answer to this. How frustrating for you!

t oops -- you were editing about the possibility of an allergic reaction as I was typing this. So toss that possibility.