Joint Pain and Pernaton

As you probably know by now, I am pretty good at telling you about things after they have happened! So true to form, last Friday was World Arthritis Day.

This year's campaign asked people to Wave for Arthritis and take a picture to upload to the site. As of today, more than 58000 people from 84 countries have taken part. Impressive numbers, I'm sure you'll agree, but the campaign is about more than just one day and all year round the organisation aims to help and support people with  rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMD) by:

• raising awareness of RMDs amongst the medical community, people with RMDs and the general public
• influencing public policy by making decision-makers aware of the burden of RMDs and the steps which can be taken to ease it
• ensuring all people with RMDs and their caregivers are aware of the vast support network available to them.

One of the main features of these conditions is pain and so these patients are very well known in the pharmacy because we dispense their pain medication. In fact about 80% of the 10 million arthritis sufferers in the UK will take pain medication every day.

Lots of people are also looking for alternatives to painkillers and we are having lots of good reports about Pernaton Gel.

Pernaton Gel is a natural product which contains green lipped mussel extract - which contains a naturally occurring glucosamine as well as menthol and pine need oils. One of its main advantages over other gels we sell is that it is safe to use in addition to other painkillers.

The company claims that 91% of a panel of testers they tried the gel on found that it eased the discomfort in their joints.

We thought we'd use our own testing panel in the pharmacy, so Willie has been using the gel for a couple of months on his stiff and aching fingers and he has certainly become its biggest fan!

"It goes on really well and feels nice and cool" says Willie. "If I don't use the Gel for a couple of days now, I certainly notice the difference. I'm not a big fan of painkillers, so Pernaton is great for me."

If you have sore or aching joints, why not come into Barnton Pharmacy to ask Willie for a sample of Pernaton Gel.