Habits are hard to break !!
I happened to arrive at my destination a half hourearly and in my pre-gout days I would automaticallyhave gone across the street to the deli and had asandwitch. Now if I had stopped to think, I might haveselected some different place but I was in a familiararea and it was luch time so I just reverted to oldhabits: Krakower sandwitch and some German potatosalad.
Its strange, particularly when one reflects on howlittle luncheon meat is actually in one tiny littlesandwitch, but toes and knuckles have been acting upagain. It not the utterly devestating pain of thefull-blown gout that I had suffered earlier, but itsure is a noticeable sensation.
Seems I’ve really got to keep this dietary stuff inmind constantly. The last urate test showed I was atthe high end anyway and it seems it doesn’t take muchto start feeling joint pain again.
Sabina Shamel on May 24th, 2007
You mentioned that you are now on alloppurinol and if so, I have somecomments about what you are experiencing. I am about 3 months aheadof you in taking alloppurinol and my symptoms and feelings may helpyou out.
The first three months on allopurinol I had constant feelings like Iwas going to get gout attacks. Sometimes I did get what I can onlycall mini attacks and I think it is what happens when crystals goback into solution and float away.
If you take a large crystal and float it in a solute, say salt inwater, that salt will dissolve slowly but as it nears beingcompletely dissolved, it will break into thousands of extremely smallcrystals that are not visible to your eyeball but which will refractlight at 90 degrees and are therefore detectable.
I think this is happening to us all the time and when we eatsomething that brings the concentration of urate up to or abovesaturation temporarily, wse get the feelings you described. Afterabout three months, for one month now for me, I have not had thefeelings and I even played golf yesterday, walked all the way andalthough my feet were certainly sore, there is not a sign that theyare going to be gouty.
I have started to eat again according to my old tasts and habits,pastrami sandwich at the turn and I loved it and so far have notsuffered from it.
I am on 300 mg now and my family Doc wants me to cut back to 100 butI won’t do that till my urate level gets to 4-5. It’s now 6-7.
Remember, if you have had a real gout attack, you will have storeduric acid, in the acid form for many years and you don’t just get ridof it in a few days or even weeks. It will take 6 months to two yearsto really bring our systems back into a gout free environment andeven then, we will need a maintenance level of allopurinol that may,as we age, get to be a higher and higher dose.