Who Are You?

You might be a student, or a professional health care provider. But the chances are that you are a gout sufferer like me, or you care for a husband, wife or other gouty friend. If you want sensible gout advice that avoids outdated myths about gout, you have come to the right place.

I have a lot of information to help you fix your gout, so let me explain whether you need to start in the Gout Symptoms Section, the Gout Treatment Section, or the Gout Diet Section. Those sections are filled with practical advice that shows you how to avoid common pitfalls, and manage your gout. If you want to understand more technical gout information, then the Uric Acid & Gouty Arthritis Information Section has all the facts you will ever need.

How Does Gout Affect You?

Forget the confusing advice you received elsewhere, then let me help you avoid all the gout myths, and learn some facts that will lead you to Gout Freedom.

The steps are simple.
Continue reading the Gout Blog 2011 Review & Introduction

I love it when gout forum posts trigger new lines of research for me.

A recent discussion about uric acid and heart disease prompted me to take a look at current research. This also tied in with a little bit of reorganizing I am doing. An old post about lowering uric acid levels did not appear to have any relevance to heart disease, but one link led to another, and before I knew it, a whole host of other diseases seemed to connect with gout.

Interestingly, the link between many of these diseases is via new research into allopurinol. I will come back to that at a later date, but for a hint of what is involved, please see Do you have gout with another disease?

Lower Uric Acid

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Hershfield believed that lowering uric acid below 2mg/dL (0.12 mmol/L) would probably be safe ^[1]. On reviewing that report in more detail, I noticed that much of his evidence was based on other diseases. There are conditions where people have the opposite conditions to gout sufferers. I.e., they either cannot produce uric acid or they over-excrete it. The first case is because they do not produce xanthine oxidase, the second because they have genetic kidney defects that stop the kidney from reclaiming uric acid. In both these conditions, people have no known ill-effects with uric acid levels below 1mg/dL (0.6mmol/L)
See how allopurinol helps more than gout

This page about Baking Soda For Gout was first published before 2008. I am re-publishing it here, despite the limited appeal for gout sufferers.

Why limited appeal? As I noted in the original article, baking soda tends to raise blood pressure. There is a high occurrence of high blood pressure amongst gout sufferers, so many simply cannot contemplate it.

Baking soda for gout sufferers is most useful as a method for dissolving or preventing kidney stones, but you must consult your doctor about this.

To understand why this works you need to consider the causes of gout.
In the first place, uric acid levels build up to a level that cannot be held in the blood.
Crystallization occurs and uric acid salts are deposited in the joints.
There is no specific level when this happens and some people can have high levels of uric acid (hyperuricemia) without developing gout.
Therefore, you should not simply focus on uric acid levels, but also on other factors.
Continue reading about Baking Soda For Gout

What’s Your Gout And Uric Acid Status?

The biggest problem for new gouty arthritis patients is to know where to start to make sense of all the gout and uric acid information. There are over 500 reference pages on this website, and over 1200 gout and uric acid discussion pages on GoutPal Interactive.

I am working on an alphabetic index, requested by a regular visitor. Once that is completed, I am introducing a new feature where visitors can recommend pages that are particularly useful. In order to make them as relevant as possible, I will incorporate a gout status indicator. Visitors will be able to recommend pages that are particularly suitable for someone seeking a clear diagnosis, or a gout sufferer seeking natural cures etc.

For this to work, I need a list of statements that visitors can mark as being particularly relevant. I have started such a list, but this would mean much more to me, if the statements mean something to you. Obviously, not all statements will apply to everyone, and some will change. For example, a gout patient looking to stop gout pain now, might be more interested in ending future gout pain, once the crisis is over. Some people will find more than one statement relevant.

The statements are currently:

• I want to stop current gout pain.
• I want to end future gout pain.
• I want to lower the uric acid level in my blood.
• I want to avoid gout medicines to fix my gout.
• I want to understand more about how gout works.
• I want to improve my gout diet.

I would like you to think about this list. If any of these apply, please can you vote for your most suitable gout and uric acid statements. Whilst you are voting, if you think of any other statements, please add them as answers. If you can improve the wording, please add appropriate comments.

Thank you for helping me make access to the gout and uric acid pages easier.

Leave this Gout And Uric Acid Page to see how to find gout and uric acid information

Prompted by an interesting question, “Do endurance athletes get gout?“, I realized I mention exercise quite often, but I have not written a comprehensive view. I need to study gout & exercise more thoroughly to get better studies on controlled gout investigations, but here is a simple overview.

Before I look at at exercise, you must remember what gout is – a uric acid imbalance where excess uric acid forms crystals in joints and other body tissues. Of itself, and contrary to popular belief, it is not a dietary problem, though bad diet can make gout worse, and occasionally it is the only source of excess uric acid.

There is an important test, when first diagnosed with gout, but before uric acid lowering treatment starts. That test involves collecting urine over a 24 hour period, which is then analyzed for uric acid output. This tells you if you are an over-producer, or under-excreter. With this knowledge, managing exercise & gout together becomes easier. Whether you get this test or not, uric acid blood tests are vital. Exercise can affect gout in different ways, and if you do not know your precise uric acid level (a number, not a label), you will not be able to judge the benefits or pitfalls from your exercise program.
Continue reading about Gout & Exercise

At this time of year, I’m often in reflective mood.

Looking back at the past year’s achievements. Looking forward to next year’s challenges.

Today, I am mindful of the social aspects of gout. Who amongst us has avoided the laughter and derision when we share our goutful state within our social circle? We have even had gout forum contributors complain of their doctor’s diagnosis accompanied by gleeful laughter.

It’s not funny! Gout hurts.

But it also hurts and saddens me to see the attitudes to this most painful of health conditions. People perceive gout as some form of amusing self-harming. So we hang our heads in shame, complaining of age and arthritis, scared to mention the G word.

But this is wrong. We have to take charge, and tell the world about gout as a genetic metabolic problem. We need to play down the food aspects. Yes, food is an important consideration in gout treatment, but only as part of a proper gout management plan. Worrying about certain foods as gout triggers is pointless, and only confuses the important issues.

Worst of all is the appalling lack of understanding and valid treatment programs in the health industry. But I digress – let me get back to social issues.

I have come to realize that the only way to make significant changes is to share. So 2012 will be my year for broadening horizons, and pushing gout awareness to everyone who needs to understand it better. Now this is no gout awareness campaign pushed by huge pharmaceutical companies. Nor is it a network of snake oil salesmen striving to create misinformation so they can benefit with “secret reports” and “miracle cures.”

My gout support network will push the values of openness and honest helpfulness that have brought GoutPal to the forefront of gout support. And it all comes down to you.

I wrote earlier about the importance of you in improving gout support services for everyone. To get more people involved, I have pushed forward with two of the biggest social networks.

GoutPal On Facebook

I set up a GoutPal Facebook page some time ago, but never really got round to learning how to develop it properly. I have revamped it, and I want to improve it during 2012, but I heed your help.

Not only do I need you to Like my page, I also need your input about what to include on the page. At the moment, it is mainly a series of automatic posts from the GoutPal websites, but I am sure it can be a lot more than that. I do not want to detract from the gout forums on GoutPal Interactive, so I am not keen on using it for questions and answers. What would you like to see there?

Also, Facebook has a blog following service. Is that useful, or would you prefer my regular email/RSS update service?

Follow this blog

GoutPal On Google Plus

Google have been keen to ride on the success of Facebook, and introduced a Google Plus service, where I have recently added a GoutPal page.

This service is very new to me, and I have yet to explore it’s potential. Have you used it? Like Facebook, what do you think is the best way to promote gout awareness through Google Plus pages? I have added PlusOne badges to the top and bottom of all pages here – have you shared your favorite pages with the rest of the world yet?

Reclaim Social Space For Good Gout Support

I’m unsure how successful my network expansion plans will be, but I am certain of one worrying fact. The online world of gout continues to be manipulated by self-serving pharmaceutical companies masquerading as information sources and self-serving snake-oil salesmen masquerading as reliable product sources. They have taken over Facebook, and I see that Google Plus will be the next target. With your help, we can stop this abuse of social networks by sharing the good stuff.

If you have ideas or questions about expanding the gout support network, please share them in the GoutPal Improvements Forum.

Guest writer Bob Coburn, creator of PURIXA gout cure, explains how a simple, cheap, effective gout remedy can boost most gout treatments.

This increase of uric acid in your system will encourage the formation of tiny urate crystals. Then the crystals usually start to accumulate mainly around joints and eventually cause a reaction with our immune system. This reaction with the immune system triggers sudden attacks of pain and inflammation at the affected area. In patients at risk of developing gout, certain conditions can precipitate acute attacks of gout. These conditions include dehydration, excessive eating of food high in purines and heavy alcohol intake.

One way of boosting the effects of any gout treatment is to drink a lot of water. This helps in flushing out the excess uric acid from the body.
There are several advantages of drinking water along with taking your gout cure:
• Helps in flushing out uric acid and other toxins.
• Helps in prevention of kidney stones.
• Helps boost metabolism rate for weight loss (excess weight may be a factor for gout).
• Helps in preventing more gout attacks.

When you don’t drink enough water, your body gets dehydrated. Dehydration may lead to other ailments like improper kidney functioning. When kidneys do not function properly it might lead to formation of kidney stones, kidney infection and cause uric acid build-up. As you already know, excess uric acid is the main culprit behind gout.

Dehydration does not result just from not drinking enough water. Your body can get dehydrated if you consume drinks like coffee, alcohol or carbonated drinks very frequently. So for gout prevention and treatment, the first step you need to take is to reduce the intake of these drinks and increase the consumption of water. Sometimes it can be hard to motivate yourself to drink a lot of water every day. In such cases you can drink fruit or vegetable juices. But it is best to stay with water as much as possible.

PURIXA™ (www.purixa.com) is one gout cure that benefits from a good supply of water. It’s recommended that you drink 8 oz of water, six to eight times a day as well as your daily dosage of PURIXA. Try mixing PURIXA with orange or sour cherry juice. Also add a slice of lemon in water with PURIXA. Mixing PURIXA with milk is another great way to take PURIXA.

Leave this Gout Cure & Gout Remedy page to browse other Gout Remedy pages

For the last 3 years, there has been interesting news about Dual Energy Computed Tomography for gout diagnosis.

Each year, roughly coinciding with annual rheumatologist meetings, we have seen reports of the amazing ability to see uric acid crystals in places previously hidden. This year is no exception.

Whilst the latest report shows that DECT is not the ultimate gout diagnostic tool for all situations, it does have a firm place in the rheumatologist’s toolkit.

I have reported on DECT For Gout Diagnosis earlier, and there are several more references, which you can find by entering DECT into the search box above. The latest report was presented at ACR Annual Scientific Meeting in November 2011, and the abstract follows.
Find out When Is DECT Best For Gout Diagnosis?