Personal messages error?

[WhiteShade6]

So I'm making personal messages in my site and for some reason they wont work. Here is my code for displaying messages:

 

				 $query="SELECT * FROM messages WHERE recipient=$user_id ORDER BY id DESC";
			 $result=mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
			 while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
			 	{
				$msg_id=mysql_real_escape_string($row['sender']);
				$qu=mysql_query("SELECT username FROM users WHERE id='".$msg_id."' LIMIT 1"); list($quu)=mysql_fetch_array($qu);
				echo '<tr><td>'.$row['title'].'</td><td><a href="users?id='.$msg_id.'">'.$quu.'</a></td><td>'.$row['date'].'</td></tr>';
				}

 

Now this is what I get:

 

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'ORDER BY id DESC' at line 1

 

Some useful information:

[*]I already echoed $user_id, it is 1, and it is an integer, not a string.

[*]The database is connected, and messages is a table. "recipient" is a field (int[11]), and so is "id".

 

Any help would be appreciated! thanks!