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I had the same problem when I had my gout attack in May 2009. I would feel better and go to office and start walking. Within 2-3 days, I used to get the pain in the big toe that would falre up in 1-2 days and back to medicines again. It happened 3 times and I was getting no respite from gout. Got my SUA tested, reading of 9.2, started Allopurinol with 150 mg, went up to 300 mg over a period of few weeks and maintained it till now. The things improved and gout became a distant memory. Now walking, jogging or running, does not matter.
Get you SUA tested, and start on the medication as required to bring SUA under control. Once you have the root cause taken care of, all other things would probably settle down over a period of time.
I started Allopurinol while I was under the attack of gout. It did not cause me any flare ups, rather it stopped swelling, pain and sensations of the pain. It took me few months to get back to track of being normal, but after that life is as usual except the dose of Allopurinol everyday.I am posting after a significant gap. I had my last attack of gout exactly 2 years back and started Allopurinol 300, which I still continue. The things improved dramatically.
I was scared of flying that it may trigger gout again.
However, in last 4 months, I have clocked close to 80, 000 miles of flying, no jokes -80, 000 miles of flying in 4 months. And it included San Francisco to Florida or Philly flyings, mostly flying for 6 hrs one way on return trips most weeks, including 5 consecutive weeks.
And I did not walk during the flights as there is not much to walk anyway in domestic flights and as most of time I fly first class, there is small first class cabin with only 4 to 6 rows.
The good news is – it did not cause any problems and not even once I felt any unusual feeling of anything that could signal gout or even a smallest uneasiness.
And I did have cheese burgers, wines and scotch etc. as they are served free in first class.
So, my experience, once you have it under control, and taking the Allopurinol regularly, it should not matter.
And I believe very few people travel as much as I travelled in last 4 months.
So, just relax and chill out.
Congrats davidk on this new found life. For most gouties, it is no less than a new life when they are able to live normal again.
And the one who gives new life is to be worshipped.
This site is no less than a holy place of worship for gouties. The real life experience and advice of the fellows over here is simply priceless.I bet, Mohave is really bad but Death Valley an hour drive away is worse. I happen to stop there for filling gas in the car at 10 pm in the night last month and it was 102 deg F. Outside was totally dry, no less than an oven.
5 minutes exposure and my head was spinning and throat paining.( I am sure the feel was 110 deg F plus).
I took 1 ltr water within next one hour to make sure I remain hydrated. I was a bit scared about a flare. Thankfully, it did not cause any problem or twinges.I never had driven a stick car with clutches but I can understand and endorse your point. I had taken brand new BMW X5 4.8i and a month after that got the right big toe injury followed by gout. The bay area traffic in California is really bad during peak hours. It is more stop than go. Applying sudden breaks with my right foot was very painful. I was not able to drive for few months.
It took me almost 6 months before I could drive it again( due to double whammy of fractured toe with gout).
It made me so much averse to X5 that I finally disposed it off and suffered loss of USD 10K plus( I bet Gout is very costly affair mentally, physically and financially). I have now taken new model of BMW 550i and that seems to be much lighter on my toe. I hope it stays that way.
If applying clutch means applying pressure, it would be very painful I guess.it is possible but not directly due to heat, the dehydration may be the reason. By the way, I am also living in California in one of the more high temp areas in East bay..today it was 107 deg F around 4 pm…even at this time around 10 pm, it is above 80 deg F. I have kept my self fully hydrated with extra 1 ltr of water…And I have been out in heat few times including 3 miles walk at 7 am… and it was long day of 10 hrs working…
I have not noticed any thing to suggest any adverse impact on Gout…
I would suggest take more water during this week as we have another 2-3 days of near 90 deg F…caveman38 said:
Is it possible to overdo the supplements.
I have been taking and as yet do not know how effective they have been: Fresh lemon juice, celery seeds, fresh cherries and cherry extract and bi-carbonate of soda.
Is it OK to take all of these (pocket permitting), alternatite daily or what.
If overkill what what you keep / drop?
If they wrok for you, good. Sodium must be watched. I never tried bi-carbonate but none other items work for me. It was just waste of time and money and continued agony /pain. I started taking mother of all – Allop 300 and everything seems to be under control. I do not take nay supplement nor do I think about what I am eating from Gout prospective.
In my personal experience, they are all useless and a desperate attempt to avoid taking Allop. But if Allop works fine, why not take it and live a better life than keep thinking what to eat and what not.
By the way I love cherries and eat them a lot but not from Gout point of view.And in my case also, doing jogging 5 miles or doing other cardio exercises do not cause any problem…..actually, my joints feel tired and painful after jogging /walking 5-8 miles and breathing heavy( which becomes normal within a minute when I stop exercise)….. but no stress on cardio things…it feels lethargic in the beginning but get much better after few miles of workout…
Gout (high SUA)seems to play in many unexplained body pains…
Like Zip said, I exactly do like that. Deep breathing, movement, changing body position and puting pressure on pain point…I can feel the pain and pin point it….occasionally it is in waves, difficult to pin point, which doctors say is more like gastric referred pain. Zantac helps to relieve when I get more episodes of such type…
One thing I generally do is walk around and see if it worsens….it generally remains same or improves….and disappears automatically….My pain is more on the shoulder blade and side of chest….
So, what doctors have been saying nerve /rib could be some diamond dust jogging around in the chest cage…
VegGuy is also saying same thing…so, it is possible many people with high SUA might have these symptoms as well…
zip2play said:
Hi Jim,
I doubt that allopuinol or colchicine have much to do with it?althout I imagine it is possible for the cartileginous connections between ribs COULD be the site of a gout attack.
Hi Zip,
The cartileginous connection is good reference provided by you. I have the problem of having pains in the chest, which feel more like coming from the ribs as I can feel mostly while pressing on them.
Due to this pain( which moves from front to sides to back, not fixed spot but many same spots), I have undegone more than 10 times on treadmill stress test and Echo and many tests in last 15 years since the age of 25 plus. Everything always clear so far. And it does not pain when I jog 5 miles but would pain when I am resting in the evening or so. Doctors have said it is either some nerve getting pressed, or some acid reflux and all that as they could not find any reason. Some have termed it anxiety.
Never thought it could be due to cartileginous connections but when I think more about it, that what it seems a possibility. May be that is an area where I do get unexplained pains for no known reason.It is really difficult if someone gets the Gout attack from hell that does not seem to heal. I depends on the job of the person too. If the job requires more walking /moving around, dress up like a sales person etc. it is really a tough call. However, after few months with right medications, things do get under reasoanbale control but with current job market situation, it can be risky.
My gout pain was horrible and I was not able to wear a shoe or walk / move out /drive car for almost 6 months. I am lucky to be in a profession, where there are only a handful of people who can do that job, and I am one of them. The current technologies make it possible to work remote. Without that, it would have been tough. I worked more than 6 months from home.
snoopy said:
Just got back from the Doctor and he ordered blood tests including uric acid and other indicators. He can’t refer me to a specialist until these are back and he won’t see me again until August
What kind of insurance is this where doctor decides when he would see you? If you have problem, it should be your choice to see the doctor as and when you want( subject to scheduling permitted). This sounds very unprofessional.
My insurance allows me to see any doctor of my choice as and when I need them. Am I missing something here on your insurance front?
Basically, I am finding it hard to accept that doctor would not see you before August.
Based on my experience and what I have seen on this forum, I would categorize the Gout related symptoms( with or without Gout treatment with medicines like Allop) as below:
1. Nano: These are very minor twinges that come up occasionally and disapear. Most of them we simply ignore.
2. Micro: These are twinges or aches that cause slight discomfort and catch attention of the brain. Still no damage. Mostly go away at their own.
3. Mini: These are more than twinges, some low level pain, sometimes swelling and enough to make a person scared. Generally an indication, gout attack is possible. Preventive tretment like Colchicine may help. Some people can get through them without much damage, some do not.
4. Macro: This is real attack. Pain, swelling, heat, redness…all classic gout symptoms. Pain killers / Colchicine etc. are required, earlier the better. Walking and other effected joint movement is very painful and better avoided. Remindes a person – life can be unfair to some.
5. Major: Well, this is worst attack like Zip said in many posts – attack from the hell. This is where shit hits the fan. A gunshot is probably less painful. Walking around – forget it. I donot wish it even to my enemies.I assume Allop is supposed to get a person from Major / Macro category to Micro / Nano. And it takes time to do that and in the process, invokes different categories of attacks depending upon how much urate it encounters during the cleansing process.
This is just my thought. Being a person in management consulting field, I love to categorize items based on severity:smile::smile:
I used to get cold feet when I started Allop treatment but after few weeks, the cold feet sensations went away.
I never felt hot feet within 10 minutes of wearing the shoes though I do get the hot sensations in the heels when I wear the shoes for long time, and I mean 10 hrs plus by long time.
I generally wear shoes around 9 am and keep them on till 9 pm or so.hansinnm said:
Utubelite said:?
The only thing which caused very little money but huge separation of pain and swelling was Allopurinol and Colchicine combo.
Since that time, I do not care about any other gout care product?I think it is more taxing on mind than helping. I actually have been testing myself by eating whatever is Gout prohibited ? dried beans, pulses, spinach, mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus, oatmeal?and I have been eating them a lot for last 6 weeks, every meal generally has one of these prohibited items?and also lamb on few occasions in addition to these items?.so far it has been good, no flareups or twinges?let’s hope it stays same way. I am taking 300 mg Allopurinol a day and I think it is helping to keep gout away?
?dried beans, pulses, spinach, mushrooms, cauliflower, asparagus, oatmeal??
Are you still eating all those vegies without any ?gout effects? ? Please, Utubelite, let me know. I am ready to ring all those people’s neck who have kept me fom eating those healthy vegies.
I am not on Allo, but on Probenecid.
hansinnm,
Yes, I am on full dose of all so called prohibited vegies…it is now many months and everyday, my 70% plus food is madeup of such items. So far, there seems to be no issue.
I think it is all part of the lame game we all go through with Gout.
I have been on Allop 300 mg for 9 months now, my SUA always below 5 ( except for couple of occasions) and I seem to be doing fine except my right foot ( point of attack and injury). Lately in last 2 weeks, I have been getting very vague pains and sensations in my both the toes and ankles, even knees at times. There is heat sometimes and some times, they feel tender. Last 2 days, particularly yesterday was scary as I got many painful twinges in the toes the whole day. There was no swelling or any pain on pressing…just more than 50 twinges in the day. I can call it mini micro attack if you would. Got up today morning and everything is cleared.
I did not take any Colchicine or any other pain killer. In the night, I loaded myself with prohibited Veg food – Spinach, Legumes and Cauliflower – did it delibrately…wanted to test if it will flare up — it got cleared up..today, there have been no sensations or twinges till now.
Every 3-4 weeks, I get such sensations and at times they are scary…there is something with this treatment which at times seems uneasy.
Hi Limpy,
it is typical of Gout to get such bouts many times before it settles down. More so if the gout area is put under pressure like walking a bit too early. In my case, whenever I was stopping Colchcine and walking out of house, within 1-2 days, I would get the pain and swelling back. So, I went through many bllod tests including Serum Uric Acid(SUA) and was put on Allopurinol /Colchcine. That was almost 11 months back. Since then, though I got many scary sensations and still get them some times( twinges, pain in ankles /knee etc.), there has been no gout attack and no pain killer for gout since July 28 last year.
It is not clear from your post what are your SUA levels, what treatment are you taking to manage gout e.g. Allopurinol or something similar etc? If you can provide some more details, that would help to better understand your situation and many people on this forum would advise you much better than what you would probably get from your medico.
Hi Jim,
I liked your words – Horror Show. No doubt, it is a scary show whenever it shows up.
You did not provide any details about your case. Is it possible for you to post more information?
zip2play said:
Post edited 1:38 pm ? June 18, 2010 by zip2play
It’s like blood pressure:
A marginally useful measure is a single reading in a doctor’s office. An EXTREMELY valuable measure is a daily average taken at home over a 3 month period.
I know this is off the Gout track to discuss the A1C but is not A1C supposed to provide the average of glucose in blood serum over a 2-3 months period? My understanding was that it provides a better and more realistic reading than just glucose reading taken at home or lab.
vegetarianGuy said:
Post edited 9:14 am ? June 17, 2010 by vegetarianGuy
I got my blood tests done recently as my father has Gout + Type II Diabetes.
My fasting readings were-
Glucose 3.7 (3.9-6.1)
HbA1c 5.6% (4.8-6.0)
Should I worry about my A1c numbers?
Am I walking toward Diabetes too?
No need to worry unless you see the trend going up….you are within normal range( I hope it is not like useless SUA range for gouties)….What I find surprising is that your Glucose is below the lower range while A1C is a bit above average ( 5.6 v/s 5.4)….
Interestingly, I get Glucose number near higher end while my A1C was at the lower end of range…sounds funny and fuzzy to see the co-relation between Glucose and A1C. My doctor said that by seeing Glucose numbers, I should control my sweet intake while seeing my A1C numbers, I can eat sweets as much as I want…what a confusion?jfee said:
The one thing that has always worked for me that I haven’t heard anyone mention yet is Indocin. If I take it when I first feel an attack coming on, it has worked for me much better than colchicine and leads to more pain relief. That said, I have had attacks that have lasted for months (specifically in my elbow). I am intolerant of any of the maintenence drugs, so I can’t take Allopurinol, Uloric, Probenicid or any of the others. Hope it feels better soon!!
Good for you that Indocin worked. I was prescribed Indocin and I took it for 10 days. For me, it was total waste, less than 5% improvement. Doctor gave me 100 tabs to keep for future use as well. I trashed them all. Colchicine worked very well for me. I think, it is all person to person thing. Thanks god there are many medicines and we can hopefully get one which works for us.
hansinnm said:
Utubelite, you got to take the ?success stories? with a grain of salt. It depends who reports them. I feel that a nearly 50 years record of success (partial as it may be) is hard to beat within a couple of years with figures which do not even come close to the numbers of people who have sussessfully used Allopurinol, and I am NOT even one of them since I was allergic to it.
I think, the new medicines in most cases are supposed to be better. And if we are taking something which is there for 50 years, we are already an outdated treatment( which may still work though as in my case of taking Allop). This theory of comparing recordsw ith number of people does not make much sense. If that was the case, the innovation will stop. I think, it is our mindset only. The new medication is supposed to be developed to remove some of the ill effects of older medicines.
If I have to take Uloric, I would not even blink in taking it.
By nature, I always believe in trying new things as soon as they are available. Technology I buy while medicines I depend on doctors. I took Allop because doctor told me so. If he tells me Uloric, I am a game for it.
Remember, scare word comes from -So (much of) care – which means Scare.For me it’s a simple case of taking the best and most proven Gout med out there. That in my humble opinion seems to be AlloP. Uloric is too new for me to trust. Once all the guinea pigs have tested it for many years and if it proves to be superior to AlloP then I will switch in a heart beat, until that time AlloP goes with me to my grave
Hopefully we will get new drugs in the future that are 100 times superior to AlloP and Uloric.
I reported in one of my earlier post, I know a person, who was on Allopurinol for more than 15 years, it had been working fine but recently he was finding it less effective and getting Gout Attacks. His doctor told him to move to Uloric and that worked well for him. After 15 yrs on Allop( 600 mg before going to Uloric), he had to move on to Uloric. He seems to be very happy with Uloric. So, I guess there are more reasons that just being proven…I have not taken Uloric but somehow there seem to be many people with better success story with Uloric than Allopurinol.
Gout_Gal said:
I've been on a lower dose of this for a while and am not taking Allopurinol as well since this first flare up won't seem to go away.
What I want to know is is this normal? Should a gout attack last this long? I've read that Allopurinol can take a while to start working and I think I've been on it for about 6 weeks now. Should I stay the course and hope that it clears up soon? Has anyone else dealt with this for such a long period of time?
Hi Gout_Gal,
You have written you are not takin Allopurinol and then you have written you are on it for 6 weeks. Which one is correct?
It is possible to have pain for many weeks and even months as you would find many have reported here. In my case, I had the pain for almost 3 months as I was getting the pain coming back again and again when I would walk more. I found cherry juice, cherry eating and other similar things having no positive impact on me whatsoever. After taking Allop for sometime, it went away.
But it is important to have the right dose of Allop. If you are taking less than the effective dose, it would not help. What is correct dose depends on your SUA (Serum Uric Acid) levels.
So, it is importnat that you get your SUA checked and then adjust Allop dose to bring it below 5 or even 4 depending upon what your levels are. And once you are on right dose, you would get back you life.
So most important thing – findout what your SUA levels are.
I never knew the pain can be colorful too. The yellow color looks like beer sending the urate crystals(flying birds) into the storming and roaring urate pool ( blue).
You may be right in your theory. I have not taken any Colchicine for 6 months now and though on couple of occasions I got serious twinges but I did not take colchcine or any other pain killer just to see if it was gout pain, it should flare up. And the twinges went away without flaring up. Never got twinges that last more than few minutes, 30 minutes to be max.
GoutPal said:
Colchicine is not gout specific – it works for many other inflammatory conditions.
This is interesting to know. I was given Colchicine and it worked really well but my doctor always said he was giving me Colchicine not for gout but for inflammation of toe joint caused by trauma and fracture. And he said that Colchicine is effective to treat such inflammations. My both gout attacks( first in 1999 and 2nd in 2009) were caused by trauma( first due to continued extreme exposure to cold weather almost “- 35 deg C” and 2nd due to injury).
The only difference is that first time I took 200 and 100 mg Allop for 6 months and stopped it due to lack of knowledge( not sure that's good thing or not) but this time seeing experience of others, I am mentally not prepared to stop it though my doctor has told me many times to stop it and see what happens.
So, does this mean that mere Colchicine working does not mean Gout always.
zip2play said:
Post edited 6:46 pm – May 28, 2010 by zip2play
So you are buying the old patented ZYLOPRIM. (Can I ask WHY?)
I buy generic allopurinol and get it at any major big store pharmacy in the U.S. for $40 a year without using my insurance. ($10 for a 90 day supply of 300 mg.)
My doctor is smart in that way..he gave me 600 mg prescription and told me to take only 300 mg…so, 3 motnhs supply I pay $ 10, which works for 6 months at 300 mg dose. So, it is $ 20 a year… I am advanced for 1 year dose at this time. The medication is very cheap, the pain is not. I wish the gout pain was also that easy on pain level like Allop is on pricing level
By the way I celebrated my Goutaversary 2 days back…I got it May 26th 2009…
Interesting example vegetarianGuy. The Allopurinol way of working is understood but how the body reacts still seems to be confusing. There are many people who report so many attacks when they take Allop( you are an example of it), while many people report no attack with Allop(like me). I do now know where are the differences. There is for sure something else in the equation not known at this time.
It would be interesting to see what some experts have to say on it like zip2play or goutpal etc. In my first attacks 10 years back, I was given Allop on the 3rd or 4th day, when I had full blown attack and a lot swollen foot. The swelling and pain went away within 2 days and I did not get any attack for next 10 years though I stopped Allop after few months. It was all against the book rules for Allop but worked for me.
My doctor told me to keep an eye on color of the urine. If that looks turning more yellow, your water intake is low( except for medicine induced yellowness). The target is to keep the urine near to water color, a tad yellow, and adjust water intake accordingly. So, after exercise, drink more water and so after the food.
It takes me 3 to 5 litres a day depending upon many factors like exercise, exposure to sun( or a/c), type of food taken etc. to keep the color in check. It is a roughcut method but I hink it works fine.
