Long term affects of allopurinol
I am 37 and have been suffering from gout for about 10 years now. Itake colchicine when in flares up bad (twice a year or so), but I’mgetting to the point were I can not handle it long enough to help.My doctor said I sould take allopurinol, but he can not tell me thelong term affects. Since I am realitivly young I worry about longturn use of this drug. Also, do cheeries work at all?
Glenn Hupper on June 26th, 2007
No, cherries don’t work and there are no long term affects of allopurinolfor 99% of the people who take it.
Ben on it for 15 years.
Terrance Molock on June 28th, 2007
Hi..there are VERY few..actual bona fide cases where people cannottake allopurinol.Those that cannot tolerate it(very few)have beenreintroduced again..or at a lesser dose and are fine.There was a timewhen it was standard practice if there were ANY problems to stop theallo for good.This included it setting off attacks.Now..more commonIF it is a reaction to the allo..try again.Usually this time the alloworks.If there attack problems ..sometimes a maintenance drug ofother types is included with the allo..for a while.
Long term effects..I don’t recall ever hearing about/reading ofany actual bona fide documented(actual medical info. from reputablemedical sources(NOT anecdotal) where it was PROVEN that allo. did ANYdamage.In every case so far that I have heard about/read about..therehave ALWAYS been other problems..ALMOST ALWAYS pre conditions thatwere there BEFORE the allo.
Allo is perhaps the drug that CLOSEST matches what the human bodyproduces.It is indeed considerred by many experts to be the mostharmless drug.To the extent that it has indeed been tested on peoplewho don’t need it.Only effect was what is suppossed to do.Lower blooduric acid levels.Athletes used to take it..AFTER they developed atest to catch probenicid(another gout drug)..that was used as amasking agent.For a while the ONLY way to detect any allo use was ahair sample.
If you look at what it actually does you can see it is prettyharmles..