Gout Diet Blog

I personally don’t like Colchicine. I know it’s effective for some,but there are better ways of getting rid of excess uric acid, for me. Thatis, of course, allopurinol. The reason I don’t like Colchicine is that theyou have to take it to the point of toxicity before it becomes effective.That means diarrhea and stomach nausea. In other words, it has to make yousick before it can make you better. This is typically superimposed on avery painful gout attack, which is no fun at all to begin with. I think Ihave heard that allopurinol may not be effective until you’re pain free fora few days. I don’t see how it could hurt to take it anyway, if you havesome handy. I keep taking mine during any attacks I get. While takingallopurinol, my attacks are much fewer, and the ones I do occasionally getare mild, and are over quickly. I used to have severe pain with my attacksfor two weeks or so.

There is some medicine which helps keep the old bod from cranking up excessuric acid. Can’t remember the name of it (senior moment). I’ve always feltthat it and allopurinol together would be the perfect combo, becauseallopurinol causes the bod to eliminate excess uric acid, once it startscranking it up

One other interesting thing. Some literature says that there is a window inmany gouties from age 45-60 in which you’re essentially attack free. Thisdid in fact happen with me. As soon as I hit 60, the attacks jumped back onme with both feet, and that’s when I resumed allopurinol

Some of the people on this list, and some literature says taking a couple ofspoonfulls of unsweetened cherries every day will significantly help preventgout attacks. Never tried it, but have heard this more than once. It’s notthat hard to do, as you can get cans of these kinds of cherries in anygrocery store. They’re quite available.

In your situation, it sounds like you’re in a vicious cycle and are going tohave to break it up in order to get it under control.

The prednizone and indomethicin are good for reduction of inflammation andswelling. Reducing either of these reduces pain. But, the main thing is tostart preventing the excess production of uric acid, and then eliminatingany that does get produced, for this is what causes the inflammation andpain. Ask a doc who specializes in rheumatic ailments how to do this(he/she should prescribe allopurinol and the other stuff I’ve forgotten thename of). A steady diet of indo is rough on the tummy, and I don’t like tokeep a steady flow of steroids going, either.

Don’t give up, though. Gout can be controlled, once you break the cycleyou’re in. I fiddled around with it from 28 on ’til present.

Gout does love to make your hooves hurt !

The topic of “borderline gout blood uric acid levels” comes up often. It should be addressed.

Borderline gout blood uric acid levels are the AVERAGE levels thatyou have during your life.

Forget attack phases.IF you have had ONE gout attack.You have WAYtoo much uric acid in your joint area..and it hascrystalized.Crystals don’t leave until drug treatment.THEN you getyour blood uric acid level checked.A few times.

This tells you that you have CLEARLY passed the point where toomuch uric acid is getting into your joint area.Too much to the pointthat it has crystalized.

The treatment of gout involves WHATEVER method works..do WHATEVERyou have to..NOBODY is against DIET..OR ANYTHING ELSE!..I willAGGRESIVELY!! challenge ANYONE on those points.

The successful treatment is the lowerring of those levels by 20 to30% AND into the low average range.This allows the uric acid to startGOING THE OTHER WAY…BACK into the bloodstream..while at the sametime allows for “blips” in the level.

Flirting with disaster allows the individual to stay close to thatrange..WHY???? does anyone want to stay close to the level..KNOWINGthat THAT level is dangerous..particularly so when it is simply NOTknown how much uric acid is dumped into the joint area.

We do know ONE thing..ONCE that uric acid has enterred the jointarea..pretty much the ONLY way back to where it belongs is with thelowerriing of the blood uric acid levels by the above amounts.

Those that have had an attack or two..and don’t get help..don’thave another for a while..KEEP their crystals..

They’ll come in handy for another day..

I’ve hadaround half a dozen attacks in this time, 3 of which I would class assevere. My father was a gout sufferer but seems to have it undercontrol now that he takes allopurinol. When I visited the Dr I wasperscribed Diclofenac to take when an attack started. Does anyone knowif this can be mixed with any oter type of anti-inflammatory or painkiller?

We have two states. In an atack and out of one and there are thingsthat we need to do when we are having an attack to reoieve the painthat may we will not necessarily do when we do not have it.

I’ll not address the classic medical treatments like culccicine andthe NSAID’s. We need em and you do what you can to make your lifecomfortable.

But there are two things that I believe help in terms of medication.The reason I like the recommendation is because I figured them outfrom what I believe the mechanism is and, so they have worked on me.There are also many articles in themnedical literature to supportthese two recommendations.

Take vitamin C. I am at 2000 units a day now, 2 grams, and plan to goto about 4 thousand units gradually over a three month period.

1. Vitamin C. One of the chemicals that is known to be readilyabsorbed by the aqueous part, the water part, of body tissue. It isalso an acid and will have the effect of protonating, that is theeffect of making uric acid salt crystals-that is what hurts us-uricacid salt crystals- it will have the effect of turning, at least thesurface of those crystals, into Uric Acid leaving sodium ascorbatedissolved in solution. Pure uric acid does not hurt us.

2. There is a secondary reason for taking vitamin C which is thatstudies from many places have shown that vitamin C has the effect ofincreasing the rate at which the body removes uric acid, that is uricacid excretion from the kidney,increases with vitamin C and itlowers, as it should from the chemistry equilibrium, the overallserum monosodium ureate level. In other words, it lowers thedissolved sodium urate in the blood and that will in turn, reduce thetendancy of the monosodium urate to crystalllize. Remember, it is themono sodium urate that crystallizes and hurts your toes. When youdrive that urate back to pure uric acid, you do not get pain. You mayget trophi but you won’t get the gout pain. The common old wivestreatment that has been shown to be relatively effective against goutis eating cherries. Lots of cherries and drinking cherry extract.Cherry extract is perhaps one of the best sources of natural vitaminC there is.

Take vitamin E, I am now on 1000 units of alpha d tochoferol, vitamine. Don’t get fooled with the d,l form, stay with the d form as the lform, in the dl mixture-which is a lot cheaper- can be toxic if youend up taking large doses. I Plan to get to about 2000 units a daybut not till later.

1. Vitamin E has been shown in numerous studies to reduce the painfrom gout and also has been used clinically to increase the rate ofuric acid excretion. In fact studies suggest that low excretion ofuric acid is actually associated with low levels, too low a level bythe way, of vitamin e in the system.

2. I chose vitamin E logically too because it is a water insoluablecompound that resides in the lippid system of your body, in th oilside of your body, and it would have the effect of trapping andholding and making unavailable, or at least making less available,the uric acid. My reasoning is that uric acid that is trapped andheld in our lippid system will not make crystals and will at leastslow down the rate of formation of the crystals by starving thesource of uric acid because it is now, more or less, hidden in thelippid system of the body. I was plesantly surprised to find thatthere is indeed strong date to support taking vitamin E to both wardoff and to help releive gout.

Now, a few words about these two chemicals.

Before my recent research on gout and finding out that these two aregood things for gout, Hell, I knew in my heart, way deep from manymany, many, years in the industry that Vitramin C and Vitamin E areknown good things for you no matter who you are, how old you are, orwhat your general state of health is. they are both good and there isno information I have come across that suggests otherwise afteralmost 40 years of being in the chemistry business.

Both help your health, both help reduce total body uric acid, bothcan help relieve immediate symptoms.

In my opinion, not taking at least 1000 miligrams of each each day isnegligance. I have thought this for at least 30 years and am now alot more motivated to keep eating the gigantic pills. I now am surethat it just is stupid to not eat them. I assure you I am not abovebeing stupid but on these two, they are now part of my diet.

For what it’s worth, I have been drinking tons of skim milk for many years, simply because I have always loved milk, and switched to skim maybe 15-20 years ago. I drink 2 gallons per week and sometimes mire than that. And I had my first of two gout attacks, two days apart, in Feb. So I don’t know how relevant skim milk may be. I also have Paget’s disease, so the milk factor may be moot in the calcium equation.

6:00 AM, Took 1 celebrex, one culchicine trying to control my goutattack and 20 Mg of Accupril-BP med7:43 Voided bladder at start of walk.7:45 45 minutes, 3 miles and an incline of 3, whatever that means, onthe tread mill. Took in 1 quart of water/electrolite (half and half-GatorAid) during the walk. I sweat profusely and from past experiencehave found that I lose about 4 pounds dufing 1 hour of a walk.

Had enough pain when I started to cause a slight limp. Big toe ofleft foot and the next two toes painful, red and slightly swollen atthe start. This attack has lasted for three months now.

8:02 Finished walk, drank one quart of water, needed to void which isnew, since I haven’t drunk water during a workout this was new and Iwould not have made it to 1 hour without a break. I will probablyhave to plan two half hour sessions.

8:45 After the walk, now some 45 minutes after stopping the walk, nopain in either the big toe or the other two toes and only have painwhen I actually press the toes down hard enough to lift me my bodyoff the floor with one foot and that pain is slight. I am leaving theshoe on that foot to keep the area warm. This fits with theobservations from “Newfoot” who reported that his pain was reducedwhen he played golf in the heat.

I was afraid of doing this walk this morning but so far it has beengreat, this is the least pain I have had now in over three months.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONAs I was walking, something occured to me that I need to, WANT TO,understand.

When I sweat,(perspire) and my sweat is salty.

Very salty in fact. Sodium something is being removed from my systemand I’ll bet there is urate in the sweat along with sodium chlorideand whatever other salts are dissolved in my blood. If this is true,then it would be MUCHO benificial to us to sweat and drink water andreplace the fluid as it is removed.

I’m not advising anyone or suggesting anything to anyone vis a visthis but it is a fact that sweat is salty and I doubt that the bodycan distinguish among the various ions when it decides it needs tocool the system down and starts the sweat process.

Hanging in there–Skip

It turns out I might have Psoriatic Arthritis and not Gout after all.I still need to see my doctor to confirm my suspicions. Upon studyingthese conditions I found out that PA is sometimes mistakenlydiagnosed as Gout because with PA you also have high uric acidlevels. You can generally tell if it’s PA rather than Gout if youalready have Psoriasis of the skin and also what is known as “sausagedigits” in toes or fingers have a sausage like appearance. AlsoArthritis of other joints is another telling sign of PA. I can’tfully straighten out my right arm or make a fist. I always wonderedwhy I never had the classic Big Toe attack of Gout. Thank you newfootfor the insight….about PA. I finally put the puzzle together.

Any reason why gout attacks while your asleep.  I woke up this morning with pain in my left ankle after one week of feeling no pain anywhere. This is my second attack since going on allopurinol (mid-Feb). I’m wondering if it is caused by my  weight loss.  Lost 8lbs. in the last three weeks.  I’m scared to eat any kind of protein.

Has anyone tried herbal treatment for gout? I’m willing to tryanything because the colgout just make me sick.Zyloprem worked wellbut I developed an allergic reaction to them.

Besides staying on my medication faithfully, there are a few things I do to limit and prevent gout attacks. I have not had a major attack since I started my medication, Allopurinol — and I’ve just celebrated my first anniversary on meds. I had two attacks prior to this, one so painful I couldn’t even lower my foot while lying on the couch.

#1) STAY HYDRATED!!! Don’t know whether or not you can tolerate water, or non-caffienated and non-alcoholic drinks, but you’d better learn to love them now! I try to drink 2 liters of water a day — though somedays I only make it to do 1. If it’s not water, it’s other liquids. Avoid alcohol totally if you can — or only drink it occasionally (socially), NOT daily. Limit caffienated drinks to ONE a day — whatever you drink to get yourself going in the morning (ONE cup of coffee — not five). If I haven’t said it enough — avoid alcohol like the plague.

On the hydration thing, I can usually “feel” an attack coming on — it’s almost like an “aura” feeling in my great joints of my feet. They just start to tingle in the joint, with some dull soreness upon palpation (pressing the joint). At this point, it’s almost too late, but I’ve prevented a few attacks from coming on when I’ve felt this by stopping all fluids except water — I once drank a liter of water over an hour or two — and popped a couple of Motrin to alleviate the beginnings of inflammation. When this “feeling” starts, I know I’ve let myself get dehydrated. As a gout victim for life, DEHYDRATION IS YOUR WORST ENEMY!!! Dehydration leads to gout attacks because the concentration of uric acid in your system is greater — hydration delutes it in your circulatory system.

#2) FOODS. There are many foods to avoid — you’ll have to research them. Avoid organ meats and anything that contains them, avoid broths or concentrates of meat, spinach, and limit your intake of red meat — which is slightly higher than the other meats in purines. Personally, I only eat fish and fowl. Limit protein intake — I only eat two servings of meat a day, and do okay with that. During a gout attack, I go on a protein fast — I eat NO meat during such, only leafy green vegetables to absorb the uric acid. Also watch your legumes — which, unfortunately, means a vegetarian diet is really no better for your joints than watching your meat intake.

#) MEDS. Whatever your doctor has prescribed — get on it and stay on it. Become an expert on that medication! For allopurinol, I know that if I’m having an attack, I have to get off of it until the attack is over, and use colchicine to alleviate the pain. Allopurinol and some other meds can make an attack worse, but do help prevent attacks.

Other points to ponder: Some people really don’t take their gout seriously, and don’t worry about diet and other things until their joint is the size of a golf-ball. This is pure ignorance! Like diabetes, or any other chronic illness, gout must be managed 24/7 — regardless of the presence of an attack. YOU WILL HAVE GOUT TILL YOU DIE.

One thing that happens if you don’t manage it, is that uric acid builds up in your system creating crystals — and they do a bit more than irritate your joints. Over time, they can damage your kidneys, and as a nurse myself, the last thing I EVER want to do in my life is be on kidney dialysis! If you love living, and want to live as long as God and/or mother nature intended, watch your weight, stay hydrated, watch your foods, and get and stay on medication!