Sheepdog

This suggests turmeric is likely beneficial for you. 🙂 Stiffness likely means blood and/or Qi stagnation and turmeric is a anti-stagnation herb, so it's good for such cases. Before, when you wrote "inflammation", I was afraid you might be trying to treat a "hot" type joint inflammation with turmeric, which would be problematic. It's not toxic. I was worried about something else - the thermal nature, hot vs cold axis. Some people have too much heat in their bodies, some have too much cold. Also different body parts can have their own thermal situations - somebody can have too much cold in one part of body, too much hot in another part of body. Some herbs are warming, some are cooling (and some are thermally neutral). One should use warm herbs to counter cold, cold herbs to counter heat. If it's the other way around, the herbs become harmful - not because they're toxic, but because it's heating what's already too hot or cooling something that's already too cold. This also applies to common kitchen items. For example garlic is hot and is harmful for people who have too much heat in their bodies. Milk is cold and is harmful for people who have cold. If you have stiffness and back pain from aging, then turmeric is likely beneficial for you, but also not a very effective treatment. I can't prescribe you anything, this is not a prescription, but if I were you, I would take interest in, research these two herbs: - Du Huo (Radix Angelicae Pubescentis) - Xu Duan (Radix Dipsaci) Du Huo clears joints, Xu Duan repairs them. Both herbs are especially targeted for lower back. These two greatly helped with my mother's lower back pain, but of course different people have different situations and results can vary. BTW I don't know what is the availability of Chinese herbs in your country. Initially I was worried they would be hard to get or expensive here in Poland, but it turned out there are multiple local online shops which deliver them without problems and at reasonable price.

I would say "couple months" is a very long time for "some mild positive" effects. It's quite likely that turmeric is doing (almost) nothing at all or is even harming you and you're simply experiencing slow natural healing, not positive effect of the herb. Generally don't listen to people who are saying things like "turmeric is good for inflammation". Such people are incompetent and dangerous to others (and even to themselves). Turmeric is a warm herb and it can be harmful for inflammation if the inflammation has hot nature. It can be beneficial for inflammation if the cause is blood stagnation or Qi stagnation, wind, cold, damp. But it's biggest specialty is blood stagnation. Unfortunately, very often somebody has good effects with a certain herb in a specific situation to which the herb is suited, but starts to recommend the herb for a wide category like "inflammation" or "joint pain" - which includes situations to which the herb is NOT suited! Could you say which joints and muscles are affected? Are the joints swollen, or maybe there is redness around them? Do they feel hot or cold? Are the joints stiff? (Maybe just stiff in the morning?) Or maybe the limb feels bit numb? Does the pain increase or decrease in response to warmth or cold? Or maybe in reaction to wet, rainy weather? Does the pain feel heavy or does it feel sharp, like stabbing with a sharp needle or knife? Is the pain constant or maybe pulsating or changing, "jumping" from one joint to another? Are you as the whole person more sensitive to hot or cold? (Which you find more tiring and unpleasant.)