My Nature Made TripleFlex Review – Is It Any Good?

by Heather Pharm.D. ·

It’s time for my Nature Made TripleFlex review, a glucosamine supplement that looks great at first sight. At least when it comes to price.

It contains 3 classic substances in pretty good doses and it doesn’t cost a lot. But other than those ingredients, it doesn’t have anything incredible inside. So from this point of view, it’s somewhere in between good and bad. However, it didn’t make anything major for my knee pain.

So what’s the truth about this product? I tried a turmeric supplement from the same brand and I was really disappointed. But TripleFlex looks a bit better, to be honest. So can it do any better than its turmeric cousin? I tried to reveal both the good and the bad about it.

Note: This review is based on my experience with this supplement, so it won’t necessarily agree with other reviews you find about it. I am not praising/criticizing the product or its company, I am simply telling my opinion about it.

So Let’s Get To The Review

Full Name: TripleFlex Triple Strength from Nature Made

Quantity : 170 caplets

Best Actual Price: $22.18

Where I Bought It From: Ebay

Designed For: Judging after what it contains, I think it works better for osteoarthritis. Glucosamine is famous for rebuilding damaged cartilages, and that’s a common problem in OA

My Rating: 6.70 out of 10

Worth Buying?: Hard to say. It’s not a bad supplement, but there are a few things that bothered me.

It has high doses of each ingredients, but it contains the weaker form of glucosamine. In my case, it wasn’t very effective when it comes to improving joint mobility (what I bought it for). So I wouldn’t really recommend it, but it’s up to you.

What I Liked About It

Each ingredients has over-average doses, compared to the products from the market
It’s extremely cheap overall
One bottle contains 170 caplets, which is enough for 85 days
It decreased the minor pain I had pretty well
It’s available in lots of places

What I Didn’t Like About It

It doesn’t contain glucosamine sulfate, but the HCl form, which doesn’t have such a good effect, according to studies
The pills were a bit too large to swallow, so I had to cut them into 2
It didn’t improve the shape of my knees, and I’m talking about their flexibility and strength (that’s what I actually bought it for, so it didn’t really do its job)

The Ingredients – Classic But Pretty Good

I was kind of used with Nature Made’s products and they were never very impressive, when it comes to ingredients. But I have to admit that TripleFlex is a lot better, at least from this point of view. Compared to other glucosamine supplements, it doesn’t look bad at all.

So let’s take each ingredient by turn:

– Glucosamine Hydrochloride (1500 mg) – glucosamine is the best substance for damaged cartilages, because it helps rebuilding them. What I really dislike about this supplement is that it uses the bad form of glucosamine, which is the HCl. That’s a big downside, but more on that later. The 1500 mg is a great dose, but as long as it’s hydrochloride, I can’t really praise it.

– Chondroitin Sulfate (800 mg) – chondroitin does pretty much the same things as glucosamine, but it also increases its potency. That’s why I personally like the glucosamine +chondroitin combination. 800 mg is indeed a very high dose, which I haven’t seen in too many supplements. So far, so good.

– MSM (750 mg) – this is a natural substance we have in our body, but it seems to decrease with age. That’s why older people tend to have lower levels. MSM decreases the inflammation from and around the joints, keeping them healthy. Even though inflammation isn’t a major problem in OA, it’s still present. 750 mg of MSM is another really high dose, so I have to praise it once again.

– Sodium (75 mg) – I’m not a fan of minerals for joint pain, so I had to search on Google to see more about sodium. But surprisingly, I didn’t find that it would be useful in any kind of arthritis. The only studies I found were about sodium hyaluronate, which was injected in the joint. But that’s not the same substance as in this supplement. So I have no idea what this sodium is good for, and whether it is useful or not.

Conclusion: Except sodium, the existent ingredients are known to be effective in OA. Besides, they have great doses, compared to other supplements.

The only complaints I have is that: 1) it only contains classic substances, without any herbal extract or anything and 2) it uses the bad form of glucosamine.

My Experience With This Supplement

My Background: I’ve been suffering from RA for several years, and as a consequence I developed a secondary OA in my right knee. Later on, the cartilages from my other knee also started wearing off.

The pain wasn’t as bad as the one from RA, but what bothered me most was the bad shape of my knees. They seemed to have lost strength, so I couldn’t walk or stand for a long while. So that’s what I was taking glucosamine supplements for. As I said, the pain isn’t that bad as the shape of my knees.

How TripleFlex Worked For Me: I took the pills for about one month, not more. That’s because I didn’t experience a great improvement in my knee’s mobility.

Yes, these pills kind of relieved my pain, I have to admit it. From this point of view, I was quite satisfied (even though my knee pain wasn’t impossible to bear, like my RA pain).

However, in that period when I took the pills, I didn’t notice any improvement in the shape of my knees. I couldn’t walk any better than before, I couldn’t stand for longer either.

Yes, I wasn’t feeling the pain almost at all. But that’s basically because I had enough cartilage left in both of my knees, so the pain had never been that bad.

So overall, these pills didn’t increase my knee flexibility. I don’t know if it was just me or not, because I read they helped other people. But I also read a lot of negative reviews, so I don’t know. All I can say is that in my case, this supplement wasn’t very useful.

Would I recommend it?: From this point of view, not really. It has enough advantages, but when it comes to effectiveness, it didn’t do its job. If you ask me, it’s because of the weak form of glucosamine.

PRO #1 – A Lot Of Pills Per Bottle

In my opinion, that’s the best thing about TripleFlex. That’s what convinced me to try it, after all.

Compared to most glucosamine supplements, TripleFlex has a lot more pills per bottle. The label calls them “caplets”, which is some kind of capsules I guess, but whatever, I call them “pills” to make it easier to understand.

So one bottle contains 170 pills. There are some smaller and some larger versions, but this is the size I got, so I will be referring to this one. Considering you’re only taking 2 pills per day, one bottle should last for 85 days. That’s exactly the number of servings from the label.

Now, according to my calculations, that would mean almost 3 months. It’s 3 months minus 5 days, to be more precise. To be honest, that is a lot. It’s one of the longest-lasting glucosamine supplements I cam across, if I may use this term. Compared to the market, 85 days sounds huge.

To give you an average, most product with glucosamine I tried would have enough pills for about 1-1.5 months. If I compare TripleFlex with any of these, it can easily win at the chapter.

The only thing I don’t like about supplements with many pills is that they are harder to store. Once you open the bottle daily, the pills can get contaminated easier. But maybe that’s just a personal obsession, as I haven’t found any study on this topic.

It simply makes sense, so that’s why I don’t like this kind of supplements tremendously. But that’s not a real downside, so don’t take it as such.

PRO #2 – Good Price

Considering how many pills it has, TripleFlex is one of the most affordable OA supplements I know. Too bad that the price doesn’t make it good. Because if it did, it might have been one of my top recommendations for OA.

So compared to other supplements, TripleFlex is definitely cheap. The best price I found was around $22, but if you’re lucky and you follow the sales, you may get an even lower price.

But let’s assume it costs $22.18, the price I found at the time I wrote this review. That’s around $0.15 per pill, which is extremely little.

So from this point of view, I really have to praise Nature Made’s supplement. It may not be the most valuable when it comes to ingredients, but it’s one of the cheapest options I came across.

However, I wouldn’t advise you to care about the price that much. I mean, it’s totally fine to choose the cheapest option, I do that too. But make sure you’re choosing the best option as ingredients first. Once you find the products with the best ingredients, you can choose the cheapest one. That’s what I usually do.

You may or may not look at other reviews, but that’s not always a must. What worked for me may not work for you, and the opposite. So the point is not to buy a product just because it’s cheap, because most of the times, it won’t be very valuable.

CON #1 – Glucosamine HCl

In my opinion, this is by far the biggest downside of Tripleflex. And that’s basically because it uses the weaker form of glucosamine, the hydrochloride. But let me explain first.

So there are 2 different types of glucosamine: sulfate and hydrochloride. Both of them are used by brands, as you can find supplements with both forms. But studies showed there are some differences between them.

Glucosamine sulfate seems to be a great cartilage rebuilder and help damaged joints. That’s because of the sulfur it contains. If you heard about the benefits of glucosamine, it was probably about the sulfate form.

However, there’s also the hydrochloride, which is cheaper from what I heard.

The problem is that studies developed on the HCl form didn’t show any major benefits in arthritis. It did work, but not as well as the sulfate. I apologize if I’m not up to date with this topic, but this is what the studies I read say.

And as I haven’t found any study that argues with it, my conclusion is that glucosamine suflate is better than the HCl.

So I’m not a big fan of supplements with glucosamine HCl, even if they have a larger dose. I know this works great for dogs, but for humans, I don’t think it’t that valuable. At least in my case, TripleFlex didn’t work, so I’m wondering if it wasn’t because of the glucosamine HCl. Because other than that, it has some pretty high doses.

CON #2 – Pretty Large Pills

Another thing that I didn’t really like about TripleFlex is the size of its pills. I know glucosamine supplements tend to have big pills, and they mostly use tablets. I don’t think I’ve seen any with gelatin capsules, which are much easier to swallow, in my opinion.

But anyway, I had the feeling like the pills of TripleFlex were a bit too large. I needed a lot of water when I took a pill, and I still had some chest pain after swallowing it. So to me, they was a bit too large.

Obviously, the best thing I could do was to cut them into 2, which I did. That was a lot better, but it still wasn’t very comfortable because I needed a big knife and it wasn’t the easy. But it was a lot easier swallowing half of the pill and then taking the other one.

So that’s what I recommend you to do, if you decide on this supplement and have the same problem as me. If you don’t, it’s even better.

I’m not sure if this is a real downside of this supplement, but it’s something I didn’t like about it. The pills didn’t taste badly or anything else, they were simply too large for me. So if you had problems in the past with big pills, you might need that info. Anyway, cutting the pills into 2 is no big deal, so this shouldn’t be a problem.

CON #3 – Did Not Improve My Knee Mobility

The most important thing about TripleFlex is that it didn’t really do its job. After all, that’s the major reason why I bought it for, not for the ingredients or the low price.

When it comes to relieving pain, I was pretty satisfied, I have to admit it. Though my OA pain was never very strong, it still existed. However, it went away almost completely after a few weeks with this supplement. So from this point of view, it did work.

But the major problem of my OA was lack of flexibility. My knees were in a very bad shape overall, and that’s what I was hoping to change with this supplement. Unfortunately, it didn’t help almost at all. I can’t say I felt a change even after one month, which is why I stopped taking the pills. I still had a lot of them, but if they weren’t helping, what’s the point?

Was it because of the glucosamine HCl? Would things have been different if it had the sulfate form? I honestly have no idea, but glucosamine sulfate supplements kind of work better for me. So I don’t really know.

So when it comes to effectiveness, I wasn’t very satisfied. It did relieve my pain, which is a great thing. But it didn’t improve my flexibility too much, and that’s what I bought it for. So I can’t say I was satisfied.

My Final Verdict – Is It Worth Buying?

Short answer: It has a great price for the quantity, but it didn’t help me much. I got a lot of pills left which I didn’t use, so I’m not so sure if the large quantity is such a big advantage. I personally would not buy it again.

It was pretty disappointing to see it has glucosamine HCl, which isn’t the best form. I know it has a really low price, but even so. I’m not sure, but I think this could be the reason why it didn’t help me so much.

That’s why I pretty much recommend glucosamine sulfate supplements. In my case, they were a lot more effective overall.

Obviously, you can choose for yourself. If you think this supplement could work for you, I say you give it a try. I don’t recommend it because it didn’t work for me. But it’s only my opinion, so if you think it could help you, just give it a shot. After all, you wouldn’t be wasting a fortune.