Share your Gout experiences

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

[QUOTE=Malienation]
I have had gout since my 20’s (as did my dad), and it has gotten worse with each passing year. Most attacks were small and merely annoying, but the frequency was fairly high. Around '99 or '00 I finally had an excruciating attack that warranted a trip to a podiatrist acquaintance. She gave me indomethacin and discouraged the allorpurinol approach, saying the more modern approach was to treat attacks instead of taking a pill everyday. She was worried about side effects, I guess, although my dad has been taking allopurinol for 25-30 years with no problems. I accepted this approach reluctantly (since attacks were too frequent for my taste) until I had an attack last year that finally signalled enough was enough. I had lost weight, stopped eating as much red meat, etc. all of which helped…but not enough. Off to a different doctor…whose arm I had to twist to get me on allorpurinol (she liked the indomethacin approach as well).

Well! There was something I should have done 10-15 years ago. I never realized how much my gout was bothering me until it went away completely. Supposedly, taking allopurinol can actually make the problem worse for a time until your body adjusts (that’s why you’re not supposed to take it for the first time during an attack), but I did not have this problem. I got just what I wanted: a long, slow decline of symptoms with no side effects.

Ain’t science wonderful?
[/QUOTE]

Glad you got past the doctors’ crazy idea that you should experience excruciating pain on a regular basis just to avoid hypothetical side effects from a drug. My experience has been that most doctors don’t appreciate how painful gout is or how much it can debilitate you during an attack, and a lot of them have this lingering impression that it’s all your fault for overindulging, even if they know the facts show otherwise.

Allopurinol changed my life and you’d have to pry it out of my hands with me kicking and screaming.

42

Yes, but as a counterpoint, here’s an article on uric acid and free radicals. Summary: uric acid is an antioxidant which may play a role in preventing strokes.

Maybe our uric acid levels get elevated because our cardiovascular systems are under stress. And if that’s the case, maybe that pain in your big toe is nature’s early warning system.

43

Hmmm. I thought it was gout, and it fit the classic symptoms, but now I’m wondering if it was pseudo-gout.

My bouts (three so far, all after turning 50) seem to occur in the spring. The first time I got it I woke up and swore that someone must have snuck in during the night and hit my toe with a tire iron. I have cats who sleep on the bed and at first I wondered whether they could have clawed my toe, causing an infection. I did a little reading, and the symptoms were classic; a red and swollen big toe, sensitive to pressure from the side. It’s always been my right toe, so driving has been a thrilling experience: Do I speed up to avoid being in an accident; or do I avoid putting pressure on that toe?

I haven’t been able to trace it to any diet, however. It seems to come and go as it pleases.

44

[QUOTE=Plynck]
Hmmm. I thought it was gout, and it fit the classic symptoms, but now I’m wondering if it was pseudo-gout.

My bouts (three so far, all after turning 50) seem to occur in the spring. The first time I got it I woke up and swore that someone must have snuck in during the night and hit my toe with a tire iron. I have cats who sleep on the bed and at first I wondered whether they could have clawed my toe, causing an infection. I did a little reading, and the symptoms were classic; a red and swollen big toe, sensitive to pressure from the side. It’s always been my right toe, so driving has been a thrilling experience: Do I speed up to avoid being in an accident; or do I avoid putting pressure on that toe?

I haven’t been able to trace it to any diet, however. It seems to come and go as it pleases.
[/QUOTE]
The fact that cause and effect is unclear is actually pretty typical. Gout is caused by high uric acid levels due to either overproduction or underexcretion. Overproduction is often due to dietary causes, although AFAIK, only about 1/3 of the uric acid in your blood is due to dietary causes; the rest is due to byproducts of metabolism. Underexcretion means you can’t get rid of it as efficiently as usual, i.e., your kidneys are on the lazy side. This means that if you get rid of all of the uric acid due to diet (unlikely) you can still have difficulty with gout because the remaining uric acid is still enough to cause an attack. :frowning: In my case, all of the things I did, diet and exercise wise, did help…but not enough. I know when I’m beat, not that I’m lazy: I kept up with the exercise and try to watch the red meat consumption, etc. No problem avoiding liver, btw :wink:

When the next meteor strikes the earth, if I survive I’m gonna guard three things with my life: Ms Malienation , my 2 pairs of eyeglasses, and every single one of those orange little pills.

45

[QUOTE=Malienation]
When the next meteor strikes the earth, if I survive I’m gonna guard three things with my life: Ms Malienation , my 2 pairs of eyeglasses, and every single one of those orange little pills.
[/QUOTE]

How many do you have? And where do you live?
Just making my own post-meteor plans…

46

I still take my Allopurinol, and keep waiting for it to appear on the Wal-mart $4.00 formulary, but I don’t think it has a generic equivalent, do y’all?

Also, I think lieu takes Colchicine, and I keep a scrip of it handy in case I need it, but I sure don’t like finding out the individual dosage: “Take as many as needed to almost make you puke, then take one less than that.”

Sounds like that scrip should bear the signature of Hippocrates. :rolleyes:

An interesting thread, to be sure. What’s good for one, isn’t necessarily good for the other.

I hope you won’t think I’m being a “smart-ass”, but I wonder if all of these answers may have some value in R&D?

Thanks

Q

47

Funny you should say that. I understand that colchicine is one the oldest drugs we have, much older than aspirin, and named after the land of Colchis, where Jason found the Golden Fleece (and where the source of cochicine was found). Your description of the dosage about matches what I’ve heard, but colchicine doesn’t seem to do anything for me. I’m taking allopurinol. It doesn’t obviously do anything, but my gout attacks are much less frequent, so it myust be working.

A couple of months ago the local supply of indomethacin was exhausted. Everywhere. They couldn’t fill my prescription. It’s as close as real life gets to tyhat meteor strike.
Fortunately, I’ve found that Advil now seems effective in countering attacks (it didn’t used to be). And now I have indocin, should I need it. But that waqs scary for a while there.

48

I found out I had gout about 20 years ago, after spending a week with my parents, (sausage and eggs for breakfast, every morning.) Since then it’s been a long trial-and-error lesson in what not to eat. None of my doctors have ever been very knowledgable about gout. Incidentally, I usually get it in my ankles, but occasionally in my big toe(s) and the ball of my foot, or feet.

A few facts(?) for your consideration:
I found out after my first attack that all of the women on my mother’s side of the family have (or had) it. Mom says it’s passed down through the mother. I don’t know if that’s true, 'cause I suspect that her doc’s a bit of a quack.
She, (Mom) takes Allipurinol to good effect. (everybody else is dead)

I got pretty good at controlling it with just my diet. I ate boneless, skinless chicken breasts for my meat component six days a week, and once a week could have fish, shrimp, or even a little beef. One thing I found out the hard way that I couldn’t eat was beans, so no more chili for me. :frowning: .
I also read somewhere that caffiene was a purine, but am unable to provide a cite for that statement. As has been said before, a lot of what you find in the literature, and on the internet, about gout is often contradictory.

Everything changed last Dec., however, when I had a heart attack. The cardiologist put me on a bunch of meds to help my body accept the stent and I started having incredibly severe and unrelenting attacks. A pure vegetarian diet didn’t even help. M regular doc started me on Allipurinol, but it did no good. Finally I got the cardiologist to take mr off the Lisinopril (an ACE inhibitor) and Toprol (a beta-blocker), and the symptoms faded away over about 2 months time.
Somebody told me that ACE inhibitors mess with your kidneys so they don’t work as they should, allowing uric acid to build up. Again a grain of salt is indicted here.

Now I’m pretty much okay, and starting to expirement to see how much I can get away with with the Allopurinol, 'cause I do love my shrimp. And chili.

I also found out that Naproxin Sodium is your friend, unless you take too much.
Buy the BIG bottle, generic.

And a month’s worth of Allipurinol cost ~$15.00 at Bi-Mart.

And I now have this dandy collection of canes. :smiley:

49

Ah, yes – other meds.
I woke up one day with a case of cellulitis. Half my face was swollen, and I looked like Quasimodo (the Victor Hugo character – I don’t know what the Dope loooks like). They put me in the hospital and gave me IV antibiotics. My cellulitis cleared up in record time, far faster than the doctor predicted.

I also got hit HARD with gout. In both feet at the same time. It was a good thing I was in bed, because I couldn’t walk. I got them to give me indocin (no bad interactions with the other drugs), and it went away. I was really surprised to learn that a sudden change in your drug-taking could trigger a severe gout attack.

50

Just for the sake of mentioning it…

I went fishing one spring, and I stood in cold water for a couple of hours. The fish were biting, and a good time was had by all.

'Cept me. I gave myself a gout attack.

The good thing was, I felt it coming on, and I had enough time to start gulping indomethacin. A few hours later–good as new.

The worst ones for me are when they come on in the middle of the night when I’m asleep. Then I wake up, get up, and swear. Once Mr. Cramptoe has firmly settled in I have a much harder time getting rid of him.

Lastly, I’m really glad that turkey doesn’t seem to set him off. I gorge on some turkey.