Gout and type 2

I have suffered with gout for years, agonising pain nothing like it always in my foot big toe to be specific. This year I have had it in my thumb and fingers instead. I had to stop my allopurinal as it interfered with something else I was taking. I have found that steroids clear it up quicker than anything but you cannot be prescribed them for gout. I got them when my asthma was bad very high doses and the gout just went away. So why can't we get them for gout if they work?

I hope your gout is gone and you don't suffer again.

Steroids probably repair the damage that the crystal has caused in the joint but do nothing for the gout. As I said before I used to tough it out but learned to keep off my feet to minimise joint damage.

It is not in doubt, keep off the major purines and you will reduce the number of attacks and the severity of them and maybe eliminate them altogether.

Then no meds or home remedies (cherries or celery or magnets) are necessary.

Better to fix the cause than fix the symptoms.

@mo53

You have 3 but you can get rid of at least 2. So the news is not bad but manageable .

I developed gout around the same time as becoming T2 on returning to the UK after a 2yr stint in Africa. Change of diet?
Not one to take meds if I don't need to, I researched traditional remedies and one of these was taking cider vinegar. The principle of this seemed to be that the cider vinegar would dissolve the uric acid crystals and be flushed out of the system. There seemed to be lots of anecdotal evidence and a scientific basis for it, so I gave it a go. It worked! and what's more I have seen it work on a colleague who could barely function even on meds and now just takes cider vinegar and chucked the meds and the walking stick.
Cider vinegar is harmless so there's no reason not to give it a go to see if it works for you.
All you do is take 1 tablespoon of cider-vinegar in warm water twice a day for two weeks. Drink plenty of water during this period too. The crystals will dissolve and be flushed out - you may feel pretty ****** as your bloodstream fills with the dissolved uric acid but persevere.
After 2 weeks you should feel a whole lot better and the gout should be gone. Now all you do it take 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar each day for the rest of your life to keep the gout at bay. Stay well hydrated too.
It's cheap and it worked for me. In fact, if I stop taking it then after a few weeks the first signs of gout start reappearing in my toes and my hands and that's a reminder to get back on the cider vinegar!
One proviso - it smells like cat wee and probably tastes like it but I've never tasted cat wee! The traditional way to take it is with honey to disguise the taste but as a diabetic I can't do that so I just got used to it... eventually.

Stuffed Olive, no idea about it's efficacy on gout but have you tried using your vinegar in a vinaigrette on a salad rather than neat. That way it perhaps would taste better . I don't sweeten vinaigrette but you could always put in a tiny bit of splenda or similar

phoenix, I do indeed use home made cider vinaigrette on my salads as a way of getting more of the stuff into me regularly, because somedays Ijust forget to drink it!

If you read this on purines and gout
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=51

This tells you what purines are and how and why they are converted to uric acid and why uric acid is critical for good health and how it all works to keep you healthy it also includes purine content of foods so you know what not to overload on.

I am sure you will agree that although people swear by different remedies, gout is only about purines.

If vinegar did anything for uric acid it would in fact be dangerous to our health.

Forge said
'If vinegar did anything for uric acid it would in fact be dangerous to our health.'

Cider vinegar works on the uric acid crystals (ie.too much purine converted to too much uric acid getting into places it shouldn't be which is dangerous to our health). Cider vinegar dissolves these nasty crystals back into uric acid in our bloodstream where it is supposed to be. Drinking sufficient water then ensures that our kidneys expel that excess uric acid in our wee rather than redepositing as gout inducing crystals.

Vinegar has many other positive health properties too. In respect of purines though its effect on uric acid crystals has kept me largely free from gout for 15 years and allowed me to keep exercising and thus has had a positive impact on my diabetes management - hardly dangerous to my heath, I think you'll agree.

stuffedolive said:

Forge said
'If vinegar did anything for uric acid it would in fact be dangerous to our health.'

Cider vinegar works on the uric acid crystals (ie.too much purine converted to too much uric acid getting into places it shouldn't be which is dangerous to our health). Cider vinegar dissolves these nasty crystals back into uric acid in our bloodstream where it is supposed to be. Drinking sufficient water then ensures that our kidneys expel that excess uric acid in our wee rather than redepositing as gout inducing crystals.

Vinegar has many other positive health properties too. In respect of purines though its effect on uric acid crystals has kept me largely free from gout for 15 years and allowed me to keep exercising and thus has had a positive impact on my diabetes management - hardly dangerous to my heath, I think you'll agree.

Click to expand...

It is a bit of a mystery how vinegar can tell the difference between liquid and crystal uric acid. Nah mehinks it is an old wives tale. Read up on purines then tell me how it works.

Some may find the following Tim Ferris blogpost of interest - it includes a draft of a chapter (not included in the final book) of Gary Taubes' book Good Calories Bad Calories. I won't attempt to summarise and readers can judge for themselves, but it paints a different picture of the causes of gout:

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2009/10/05/gout/

forge said:

It is a bit of a mystery how vinegar can tell the difference between liquid and crystal uric acid..

Click to expand...

Perhaps I need to explain a little bit of primary school science. i.e. change of state.
Liquids can crystalize for a variety of reasons. Ice for example is cystalized water caused by a lowering of temperature. Salt will crystalise from solution when its concentration increases (eg evaporation in a lake). Uric acid crystalises in the same way.
The point is this. The chemical does not alter its chemical makeup just its state i.e liquid or solid. Thus just as salt will become a solute again when water is added, (especially warm water) then other solids (such as uric acid crystals) will change to a liquid state when a change of condition is applied to it e.g. temperature change, concentration and also the addition of a catalyst, such as vinegar.

I hope that has cleared things up for you. There's no magic, vinegar doesn't need a conscience, And chemical changes such as this are common throughout our bodies - we couldn't exit if they didn't happen.

I have suffered with gouty arthritis for a few years and even had to have an op to remove solid mass in my wrist. Frequently get flare ups for no known reason my G.P. has given me a supply of INDOMETHACIN for my drugs cupboard and I take these straight away and it tends to settle within a couple of days. I know how painful it is but this drug seems to work for me

I do not keep a diary of my life but I can still associate events.

I play lawn bowls and I can remember changing my bowls delivery because of gout from conventional to fixed stance because of gout and then changing it back again when the bowls stance was affecting my hip and that was probably 27 years ago and at least 10 years before I was diagnosed as diabetic requiring diet and exercise.

Since then I have had some twinges I associated with gout but I have never had an attack bad enough to go to the doc nor have I taken anti inflammatory or any other medication.

In that time I went from diet and exercise to 1/2 tab per day for T2 to a full tab then mixed fast and slow jab and then 3 fast jabs plus 1 slow jab, and that increased to 130 units jab per day. And during this time I put on weight about 15kg.

I kept a lid on my purines intake which means for me no offal and no pork and only a few prawns occasionally.

So simply by doing nothing else other than purine excess limiting I went from crippling gout attacks stopping me catching a bus to go to work to virtually gout free. And during this period I went from pre-diabetes to insulin dependent and added 15 kg. and I also became 27 years older.

I was a member of the wine and beer makers club for 10 years and I drank a lot it is only in the last 7 years that I have reduced my drinking but I still drink every week.

My experience is not aligned with this unpublished speculation. In fact it is quite the reverse

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2009/10/05/gout/

I have no doubt that purine excess causes gout, the medics are not fools and modern medicine does not have to keep proving the same thing over and over again.

They know what causes gout, and just because someone does not like it or wants a magic cure from eating tulip leaves or banana skins does not justify spending millions on research.

Get off the excess purines and it is your best chance of reducing or eliminating your gout attacks.

forge said:

I have no doubt that purine excess causes gout, the medics are not fools and modern medicine does not have to keep proving the same thing over and over again.

They know what causes gout, and just because someone does not like it or wants a magic cure from eating tulip leaves or banana skins does not justify spending millions on research.

Get off the excess purines and it is your best chance of reducing or eliminating your gout attacks.

Click to expand...

Forge,
I don't think anyone is arguing that excess purines in the bloodstream don't cause gout, they do. What's at question here is what makes the body deposit this excess purine as gout inducing crystals instead of expelling them as waste products. The reasons are undoubtedly complex (although clearly diet related), not yet fully understood and subject to genetic variation in the individual.
The response to this seems two-fold.
Firstly,.as you say, reduce the amount of purines in the bloodstream. Again, two options here i) reduce the amount getting in in the first place. This is clearly a diet/genetic variation issue as to what makes the purines from our food, not forgetting that our own cell metabolism also generates purines and this could also be exercise related. ii) reducing the concentration of purines in the bloodstream. Good hydration is key as is kidney function and kidney function depends on a whole range of complex factors as we diabetics should know..
Secondly, how to get rid of gouty crystals one they have formed. The choice here is prescription drugs or 'other remedies' if they work for you and CV works for me and others report the same