Glucosamine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands
Glucosamine is a medicine sold in the U.S. under one brand. Below: what the FDA label says, every product that contains it, what the pills look like, and its recall record.
Key facts
- Sold as
- Glucosamine
- Generic available?
- Not in our catalog
Every glucosamine product we track (1)
Same active ingredient — different manufacturer, form, price and FDA recall record. That last one is what our independent score measures.
Only one: Glucosamine.
Glucosamine recalls
From the FDA Enforcement database. A recall covers specific lots — not the drug as a whole.
Glucosamine and breastfeeding
From LactMed, the US National Library of Medicine’s Drugs and Lactation Database — quoted, not rewritten.
Full LactMed record for glucosamine: levels in milk, effects in breastfed infants, and the drugs it would consider insteadGlucosamine is an amino-monosaccharide that is either derived from shellfish or synthetically produced. Glucosamine sulfate has no specific lactation-related uses. It is most commonly used to treat osteoarthritis. A glucosamine derivative, N-acetylglucosamine, is a normal component of human breastmilk. Glucosamine sulfate is well tolerated with occasional gastrointestinal discomfort (e.g., diarrhea, heartburn, nausea, vomiting) reported. Although no studies exist on the use of glucosamine sulfate during breastfeeding, its use by a nursing mother is unlikely to adversely affect the breastfed infant.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, record revised May 17, 2021. LactMed states its information is not a substitute for professional judgement.
What people report to the FDA about glucosamine
The FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) collects reports from patients and clinicians. It holds 3,045 reports naming glucosamine, and the FDA flagged 65% of those reports as serious. The effects reported most often — leaving out reports about overdose, misuse or the condition being treated, which dominate the raw list for common medicines:
- fall331 reports
- fatigue330 reports
- arthralgia263 reports
- constipation231 reports
- diarrhoea213 reports
- dyspnoea213 reports
- dizziness210 reports
- nausea208 reports
Read these as a signal, not a rate. A report does not mean glucosamine caused the effect — anyone can file one, and many describe people taking several medicines for several conditions. Crucially there is no denominator: FAERS does not record how many people took the drug, so these counts cannot be turned into “X% of patients” — a bigger number often just means a more widely used or more talked-about drug. Duplicates exist, and publicity drives reporting. For what is actually established, read the FDA label section above.
Source: openFDA drug/event (FAERS), retrieved July 25, 2026.
Related calculators
Frequently asked questions
What is Glucosamine?
A joint-support supplement, often paired with chondroitin, taken for cartilage and osteoarthritis.
Can you take glucosamine with other medicines?
It depends on the medicine. We check it against the FDA labels rather than guessing: our interaction checker searches each drug's own label for the other and quotes what it says, naming the section it came from. Run glucosamine against whatever else you take — and remember that a label not naming a drug is not the same as that combination being safe.
Is there a generic glucosamine?
We do not currently list a generic-labelled glucosamine product. That does not always mean none exists — it means none appears under a generic name in the FDA data we track. Ask your pharmacist.
Has glucosamine been recalled?
The FDA's Enforcement database lists 1 recall record whose product description mentions glucosamine. The most recent: Artridon Glucosamine (menthol 2% and Methyl Salicylate 15% (Apr 24, 2025). A recall applies to specific lots, not to the drug as a whole — check the record for the affected lot numbers.
Cite this page
- APA
- pharmaranks. (2026, July 24). Glucosamine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands. https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/glucosamine
- MLA
- “Glucosamine: uses, dosing, side effects & brands.” pharmaranks, 24 July 2026, https://pharmaranks.com/drugs/glucosamine.
We summarise public FDA and NIH sources — for a clinical claim, cite the primary source we link to as well.
Sources: FDA openFDA drug label, National Drug Code Directory, and Enforcement (recall) database. This page reproduces public FDA data and is not medical advice. Dosing is set by your prescriber.
Read the full FDA label for glucosamine on DailyMed (NIH) ↗.