Diet soda/soft drinks
So would it be the sweetener in these drinks that is the culprit? Doyou know which sweetener it is? Could well be in other products ifit’s the sweetener rather than the drink itself?
I thought my gout would get worse as the weather got colder, butwe’re now in the depths of winter here in Australia and haven’t hada twinge - no aches and pains that I’ve had since last Sept -nothing for three weeks. I haven’t changed my diet/lifestyle oranything else that I can think of during these weeks. The onlychange is the cold weather. I thought this was supposed to make itworse?
Sol Ralls on August 17th, 2007
I can’t speak to the diet drink issue, however, I can confirm thatcold weather seems to trigger it. (you may be accurate in addressingthe artificial sweetner as the trigger) I have had gout for manyyears, keeping it “tolerable” using allupurinol and watching what Ieat. Since I’ve had it so long I’ve always got the pain but it’stolerable for the most part unless I overdo it or eat somethingwrong. I’m a firefighter in the northern part of the USA(Wisconsin) and if my feet get cold, or worse, wet and cold, ithurts for days.
Terrance Molock on August 18th, 2007
ou’re on allopurinol..for how long?It takes on average 2-3years..took me 1 1/2 LONG years before I could get off DAILYcolchicine..but can take 10 to get rid of the deposits..perhaps youneed a stronger dose?To get you out the threshold area..or a weakerdose..it could be upsetting the u/a deposits too fast and is sendingthem scurrying..and looking for a new home..elsewhere. Cold feet is often a circulation problem..you could have u/adeposits affecting that.I have seen reccommendations for footexercises..to stretch and work the joints..forcing the synovial fluidin the joints to move..flushing out deposits..
Jaleesa Germershausen Germinaro on August 19th, 2007
I finally found an arthritusspecialist that explained to me that blood carries ahugh variety of chemicals and nutrients around.. andif the blood has too much in it, it becomessaturated… and then if there is a trigger, thosedamn gout crystals come out of solution. I wouldalways wake up with a gout attack when I had felt finethe evening before… but this too makes sense,chemistry-wise. If you have a beaker of solution thatyou keep warm and in motion.. but if it cools or ifthe motion of the liquids stops, the materials in aover saturated solution will then come out as crystalsand solids. So when you are sleeping the circulationsslows dramatically and the feet also get cold… thenyou become susceptible to an attack. (I wonder if youhad a heating pad for your feet it might help!)
And Marg I would have thought cold weather would haveincrease the chances of an attack too, but perhaps itjust the internal temp of the foot and toe.
My blood tests at the time showed that I had very hightriglycerides and high chlorestel as well, and the damnutrisweet (from the diet sodas). I used to eat quickmeals (frozen dinners, etc) which were full ofsaturated fats. I now hardly ever eat out and cooksimple meals every night. Chicken (boneless skinlessbreast meat) with seasonings, or Salmon (for the omega3’s). My tri-g’s are now below what is considerednormal. Chloresteral still a little high but workingon that. Regarding the nutrasweet; I found on theinternet that it breaks down in the body into twoprimary components: formaldihyde (sp?) and a nervetoxin. I don’t think either of those two things areany good! I also understand that allopurinol puts aheavy load on the liver and while it does reduce uricacid, for some people it may start to have othernegative effects over time. My problem withallopurinol (in combo with the nutrasweet) was I endedup with severe muscle and joint pain all over. Ibelieve that the nutrasweet exacerbated the problem.I had all kinds of weird problems (stomach cramps,knee joint pain so bad I couldn’t bend down to pick upsomething off the floor, soft finger nails, heartpalpatations, nose bleeds!!!) All of it has gone awaysince stopping diet sodas. I used to drink up to 2litres a day!!
So, while I know this is a gout group and others maynot have had the interelated issues I did, I know thatgetting all the junk out of your blood will do nothingbut help! So I’m losing weight (6′ 3″, 55 yo, 232 lbsat peak). I’ve lost 7 lbs, but have a long way to go. So, improving your diet, losing weight, getting fitwill probably go a long way to helping. I have’nt hadan attack in 4 months… not taking any meds. fingercrossed! I had gout for 15 years, had a permanentlyred and inflammed toe, couldn’t walk without a limp; Iwas ready to cut my foot off! But now I feel prettydarn good!
Sabina Shamel on August 20th, 2007
If you have a beaker of solution that
If you have a saturated solution of a chemical and you have crystalsstarting to form, usually if you heat that area locally the crystalswill form more quickly in that area untill the solution is no longersaturated.
Applying the reasoning, if your uric acid is percipitating out, andyou heat the area, then it may increase the rate of percipitation.However, long term, keep it warm. If you keep your gout area warmerthan the rest of the body, the uric acid crystals will disappear fromthat area.
However, I worry about this as a blanket way to treat the affectedarea because if you make the feet warm and leave, for example, thehead out and cold, will uric acid percipitate out there?Mmmm , I really don’t know.
The temperature of the air outside the system, that is your body,will not affect the tednancy to percipitate. Many people keep theirbody warmer in the winter than they do in the summer even if it iscold outside, by bundling up. If you leave your feet out at night andit is cold in the room you are asking for an attack.
Simple experiment-saturate pure water with uric acid and then startto add sodium triglicerate. Does it make the uric acid percipitate.Seems like a pretty simple thing to do. If it does than we know thattrigliceride level in our bodies will affect or crystillizationtendany, i.e. gout attack level.
An observation that I have made, when the gout is letting up in mytoe, I feel heavy cramping in the muscles in the calf, the ankle andsometimes all the way up my leg. I love the reduction in the goutattack but dread the two days or so of cramps that I know willaccompany a let up of the gout attack. My guess is that muscle tissuesaturated with uric acid doesn’t function properly. Perhaps asecondary effect but then again, maybe not.
One more question that I think is related to the muscle cramp issue.I have High Blood pressure, untreated 150/95 and 120/80 when on 20 Mga day of accupril. Several of my gouty friends also have high bloodpressure. Don’t know if there is a correlation or not but the MedText book I have warns the doc to make sure the gout patient takestheir meds for BP so it at least makes an honorable mention. As goutsufferers we are in a higher risk cartegory for a heart attack, or somy physician says.
Giovanni Quaresma on August 21st, 2007
My own experiences tend to back up this piece.
I too have high blood pressure and take atenolol (UK name - not surewhat the specific chemical is in this). I also, due to a fondness fordairy fats and salty things, notably salted peanuts, have highcholesterol levels and relatively poor levels of water consumption. WhatI’ve done is try to cut down on dairy fats, especially butter, drink farmore water, and try to cut down on salt as much as possible. I remainconvinced that all of these things are linked, and this email does drawa few of these threads together. So keep drinking the water!
On a final point, my GP (UK term, physician in US) also said that beer(UK varieties tend to be 3-5% alcohol by volume) are regarded as OK (inmoderation) as they are around 95% water.
Jaleesa Germershausen Germinaro on August 23rd, 2007
Just adding more data to the total: I too have highblood pressure, but kept normal with prinivil. But,don’t most ol’ geezers my age have high bp anyway? (55y.o.) Actually, in my case my high bp was detectedwhen I was 30.
Another note: when I exercise (approx 5 miles ofhiking some pretty serious hills) my bp drops 20points. My doc sez that is pretty normal. I notedthat someone else mentioned bp increasing uponexercise. I think the bp may temporarily increaseuntil the blood vessals begin to dilate. Many timeswhen I would have a mild attack in progress goodarobic exercise (sweating my butt off) usually reducedor stopped the attack. My guess is that the increasedblood flow helped to re-absorb the crystal.
Sabina Shamel on August 25th, 2007
Exercize will retard orstop my attacks. Higher temperature and elevated BP when exercizing.Even if only for 30 minutes may be enough to force the MonosodiumUreate back into solution.
I am going to start calling the culprit what it is because the sodiumsalt of an organic acid is a lot different then the acid itself. Whatcrystallizes out is the mono sodium salt of uric acid. Uric aciditself is, as far as I can tell, not a problem, it is a problembecause it can be converted into the sodium ureate which willcrystallize but the pure uric acid in its scidic state is the thepain maker.
If I am wrong about this, please correct me with references. I cansupply many references that say this and I want to make sure beforeproceeding that this is indeed out offender.
I do understand that at this time I am only dealing with the currentsymptoms that afflict us when we have an attack but for this I can beforgiven, having just come out of a relatively serious 6 week attack.
The issue does get a lot more complicated with a mono sodium salt ofa poly valent acid. I will post a simple set of equations later,either tonite or tomorrow, but I’m sure now that your blood PH, thatis your blood acidity, will play a critical role in how the attackprogresses. Oh yes, by the way, when you exercize for a prolongedperiod, say 45 minutes, you wll alter your blood Ph, the acidity, ofyour blood quite a bit and that effect will last for hours.
My observation that my gout attack lets up when I get dihreah may bea strong back up for this because when you have dihreah, your bloodchemistry goes completely off the scale.
Eating vinegar or carbonate will not alter your blood chemistry verymuch or at all by the way. The body is far too good a buffer to allowyou to moderate the PH very much with your diet. But, there may beways they can alter our internal blood chemistry, or more properlyout blood acidity, even for a whole day, and that might be able towould take the crystals out and stop the pain.
One other note that I feel is really important in all of this. Ifound this article in my search this morning.The Allopurinol Cure for Prostatitishttp://www.prostatitis.org/allopurinol.html
There are too many symptoms that seem to correlate to me to not berelated. Allopurinol seems to have a dramatic effect on your abilityto urinate in men who are over 40 and who have prostetitus(swellingof the prostate gland)-the same group of people who suffer from goutare the same age.
Men suffer significantly more from gout than women, my poor mom hasit but the numbers are pretty overwhelming. I feel I need to documentthest things I have been saying but I won’t unless challenged. Movingalong…
I just started allopurinol and have noticed a dramatic difference inurination, its easier, the urine is darker yellow and it has thefamiliar smells that it used to have when I was a kid. Now that is aneffect on a bunch of things but clearly if it is more difficult tourinate it will inhibit, even if it is subchonsciously over weeks,months and eventually into years, your tendancy to drink water andtherefore it will affect your overall supply of water to put theexcess uric acid salt into. I am suggesting that there is at least asecondary relationship between prostate swelling and the onset ofgout. The relationship may be more direct however.
One last note, I mentioned it sort of in passing about my grandfather being pretty long lived. There seems to be an abundance ofinformation demonstrating that uric acid, in and of itself, is a verystrong antioxidant and that it has the effect of helping to preventcancer.