"I first took SAM-e for mood when I was in my early 20s. As I've gotten older I started taking it again for mood as well as for spinal stenosis, overall joint pains, pre and post operative hip and knee issues.

This SAM-e worked effectively for its cost, so I had a subscription for it. I was a loyal customer to this brand since 2021. I was very satisfied... until my last purchase of it.

I had been buying the 90 count package for the best savings. That one box can often last over 3 months because I'll miss a dose probably every other week just due to forgetting during busy days.

About 3 weeks ago I finally popped the first pill out of a bubble card from my most recently purchased package. Immediately there was a foul aroma. I thought maybe someone, at the same time, had opened one of the exterior doors and the scent of a distant skunk got in the house. No, it was the pill. I threw it out thinking it must be a fluke. I opened another bubble. Same thing! At this point I wondered if it was just that particular card I was holding. I took one pill and then another from random areas of each card.

Every pill smells JUST like skunk... I had others sniff to confirm that my nose wasn't just going haywire. They recoiled and quickly agreed.
This was not how they smelled with previous orders.

Now I wanted to figure out what to do. I only take one a day, they're expensive no matter what brand you go with. l just spent $40 on this purchase so I had already used what I had budgeted to get my SAM-e for the next 3 months. I did not have money to get more right away.

I looked around online to find information on SAM-e stinking. Most sources said if it has a foul smell it is probably past its prime, but none described the smell I experienced. The description of old SAM-e I found was more like sulfer. Maybe a skunk just got in to where they're produced...?

People and animals sprayed by skunks survive with the main side effect, if any, being nausea. I skipped my dose that day and left all the pills I had popped out in the bottom of the box to air out.
Since skunk is a very distinct smell, I figured it must have just been a bad day at the factory.
The next day I gave the loose pills a sniff. No skunk smell. With this method working, I decided I'd proceed until I could get a replacement box.

That lasted just about a week before I HAD to stop taking it.

I became extremely gassy, and it was AWFUL! My 4th grader happened to be coming into my room shortly after I passed wind and, after a moment, began dry heaving from the smell.
My dog started vacating my room when I would fart and my cats stopped sleeping on my bed at night.

Not only that, but I was having crying spells again and ached all over as if I weren't taking it.

I did try contacting Nature's Trove through their direct website, explaining the stink and requesting a replacement, but I got no response.

I was hoping this was just a one-off they would correct with a fresh box."

"I’ve tried them all over the years, but none of them touch the results of these. All SAM-e MUST be enteric coated, and must be in an airtight, blacked-out container until taken, to work at all. Yes foil packs are a pain but these are super-easy to open, and the best way to keep them at their very freshest. I use Sam-e as an adjunct medicine for depression and joint pain; there are unnoticed benefits as well."

"I’ll start with a little back story to my SAM-e history. SAM-e is very potent and you need to start taking it slowly. The first time I took it I was following a friend’s recommendation on using the supplement for hot flashes but she didn’t know how much to take so I took 400mg as recommended on the box and, man oh man, I had a raging headache all day like nothing I’d experienced before (except when hungover but that’s a whole nother story…) That night I plopped my tush in front of the PC and did mega research and finally found a doctor’s page that recommends starting with 200mg and building up from there. Like any anti-depressant, it works at first and then it starts to not work quite as well and that’s when you up it. When it permanently stabilizes, you know you’ve reached your best dosage. As mentioned, I take SAM-e only for my menopausal hot flashes (extreme, like soaking wet 5x a day and throughout the night. Anti-depressants help alleviate menopause symptoms for some reason.) After a year I was up to 800mg a day using Nature Made’s SAM-e. I was buying theirs only because it’s a brand name I’ve heard of, no other reason. I would still have hot flashes but more manageable but I really didn’t want to go any higher in the dosage. Then, a few months ago, any place I tried to order Nature Made’s SAM-e was suddenly cancelling my order and I desperately needed it to keep my hot flashes to a minimum. So I did a lot of research again, but this time for brands, and found that Nature’s Trove had great reviews for SAM-e. I got my order and started this brand a week ago and immediately started with 800mg, since that’s what I was already taking, and all that day I had a raging headache, the same I’d had when I first took it with Nature Made. What does that important piece of info tell me? That tells me that this brand has MUCH more of the main ingredient S-Adenosyl Methionine in each tablet. They make this claim but I can tell you for a fact that it’s 100% true. Even 400mg gives me a slight headache for a short period after I take it but not enough for me to go to a lower dosage unless I still have the headaches after another week. I’d rather wait out the slight headache for a few hours a day than go through extreme hot flashes (that’s how awful they are!) From experience, the headaches should stop within a week. One note for women new to taking it for menopause, I would definitely recommend starting with 200mg as I did when I first started using SAM-e, not 400mg as recommended for anti-depression. Another note on an obvious fact about the higher cost of this brand vs other brands: if a lower dosage helps, you won’t need to spend as much money because you’ll need less tablets. I will try to remember to update at a later time if I find it works even better at keeping my hot flashes at bay.

Update: I eventually had to move up to 800mg but it was making me sleep A LOT (which is what high doses of anti-depressants do) so I went back down to 600mg and it still works fine. Not perfect, but good enough. So now I have night hot flashes again but usually sleep through them and only know they even happened because my PJs are soaked when I wake up. (That means I’m not getting the anxious feeling that usually precedes a hot flash and is the cause of waking me up.) I only wake up during the night when my wet pajamas are making me really cold. Even then I usually just pull up another blanket and go right back to sleep. Gross, yes, but I’d rather not fully disrupt my sleep if I don’t have to."