The Demon
With this being your 1st gout attack, I’m assuming you’re at the ripe old age of somewhere to the tune of, um, 40? Although a proper diet is the correct ticket, there’s also medication that will dissolve the gout crystal as well as neutralize the uric acid that’s forming the crystal. You can still drink alcohol, enjoy fatty foods, eat pork and beef (all in moderation of course), while controlling your gout with medicine. See your doctor. There’s a balance in enjoying life and maintaining health. You can do both young man.
Posted by andy42302
10/08/2007 at 09:35 AM
My doctor keeps worrying about gout too. Seems my uric acid levels are high and he keeps prescribing me medicine for it. Which I keep losing. No gout attacks yet. I attribute that to my active lifestyle. Despite being overweight, drinking too much, and loving sausage, cheese, etc, I walk several miles a day as a mail carrier. Wonderful, if sometimes boring, job. You meet the nicest people, (and the @ssholes of the world, especially on the 1st of the month if the check doesn’t show), you’re out in fresh (cough) air and bright sunshine, and you get the occasional cardio-vascular workout when the dog chases you.
All this fun, and a paycheck to boot!
Christopher, there’s a chance you’ll never experience an attack and I hope you don’t. I’d hang on to the meds tho as “you’ll come to know when the bullet hits the bone”. Andy
Posted by andy42302
10/08/2007 at 12:36 PM
andy42302
Didn’t mean to belittle Mr. Christian’s obvious pain. I’ve enough fellow employees that do suffer gout. DO NOT WANT, as they would say on some lolcat sites. Gout doesn’t run in my family. In fact, after my doctor started worrying about it, I asked around my family. No one ever had it. Fat, thin, alcoholic, cheese-loving Frenchman, no one. I suspect a hereditary component to gout.
My father never had it. An unfair comparison, he died at age 34 of colon cancer. In fact, ALL of my ancestors seemed to die of cancer. Breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, etc. Hell, even my step-father died of esophagol cancer four years ago.
As we speak, my wife is at the dermatologist to detemine if she has skin cancer. She’s been there for a long time. Over four hours now. No word. WTF? It was supposed to be a simple office visit.
So, not denigrate all you who suffer from gout, I’ve a few friends who do. It apparently sucks. But I’ll trade you your gout for my inevitable cancer.
Yes - this getting old is a real drag - I’ve been down since Friday nite (head is still spinning but I have to get upright - two medical appointments this week, neither mine) - all from a reaction to something put in an OTC. I have to write to Tylonol - was great until this new trend of their’s to have a ‘new’ formulation every few weeks. The cool burst just made my headaches worse but this ‘rapid release gel’ capsules threw me into a just under ‘dangerous’ reaction. Never can I cross that line to end up in the ER - the Docs all want to discount my reaction to codine for the exact same reason - never ended up on deaths door.
Man as a young thing I drank soda, coffee and alcohol 24/7, smoked and never slept and certainly never ate a worthwhile diet (until the kids came along, then I tried more often). . .Now that lifestyle would kill me in a week.
I feel like such a wimp.
I have had a battle with gout for many years. There are a number of contributors to high uric acid, principally sugar, alcohol, and cholesterol. Tomatoes are also a very high contributor. I tried moderating use of these substances and found that I still had occasional bouts with the gout, most often during hot weather. I found that if I consumed large quantities of water, it would keep the attacks in check.
Yet my uric acid levels remained high. I moderated sugar use even further and eliminated alcohol, and my number was still high, leaving the medical men to believe it’s hereditary. (My two brothers have had occasional attacks.)
I am know taking 300mg of Allopurinol daily, which has finally brought my uric acid within acceptable levels.
Good luck in solving your problem.
Posted by Tom M.
10/08/2007 at 06:26 PM
Humans and apes are the only mammals that get gout we’re the only ones who don’t produce an enzyme that breaks down uric acid in our bloodstreams. The kidneys are supposed to flush it out of our systems instead but some peoples’ kidneys are better than others at the job. That’s why some people with “normal” levels of uric acid get gout and some with high levels never get gout once in their lifetimes: Your Mileage May Vary.
Excess uric acid deposits in the lower joints and extremities (fingers, sometimes) and gout is actually an immune response to the deposits. The deposits never really go away but the body forms a protective covering over them, sealing them from the immune system. It’s when that covering breaks down that gout flares up.
Since gout is caused by the lack of an enzyme you might ask, “Well, why don’t we just take that enzyme, get rid of the excess uric acid, and cure the gout for good?” Well, we KNOW what that enzyme is and we’ve synthesized it. We even use it therapeudically for other conditions. Ssvant Laboratories has just completed the Phase III trials of <a href=http://www.savientpharma.com/pipeline/puricase.asp>Puricase</a> and will be reporting out on the results in the next few months.
I occasionally get the gout also, and I am only 35. My grandma got it often too, so it runs in my family. It happens if I drink more than I should have and did not eat good for a while. My friend suggested I eat garlic if it ever comes up and it seems to work pretty well. If I feel any pain from it, I eat some minced garlic and have pasta with lots of garlic and it goes away. And if you eat garlic often it alos seems to help from getting attacks.
try some garlic the next time, it really works for me.
So I guess the shooting range is out....
"We’re are in midst of very serious postal strike here” because all our food is sent through the post. i am fucking crying with laughter here, keep up the good work Peiper telling your yankie mates just how it is here. how you keeping a part from the food shortage ?
10/13/2007 at 05:03 PM
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