new member looking for help

[no anwsers]

had gout 15 years was wondering if all gout pain is equal some people i have told that i have gout tell me how they work with it and sleep just fine and take the pain ok. that has not been my experience .my gout puts me in pain in ways that i fully can not descibe. times where i was considering stupid things to make the pain stop .

[tonyccc]

Gout pain is considered to be one of the worst pains that you can have.I know because I had to live with it.Try voltaren 50 if you have a strong stomach.That should ease the pain within hours.

[Hof]

Just registered today and wandering through various comments. I too have had gout for about 25 plus years I suppose and in each case the pain has been varied. I've been crippled in both feet, elbow and forearm swollen, either foot at a time. As I sit here today with my foot raised now for a week drinking as much warter and eating cherries and yogurt along with iboprophin and pain pills, I've finally come to a forum to share and look for more information on what pretty much puts me out of commision. Guess I've got to do something as allopurinol finally effected my kidneys to where I had to get off it, before they failed all together. ......Not so quick a reply here, but there you go.

[tonyccc]

Here is my story. It was the middle of the night. I opened my eyes and was awakened by earth shattering pain. My big toe was throbbing. In fact it felt like a towering inferno.
I turned on the light and was startled to see that my great toe was 3 times its normal size. It was bright red and red hot, just like a firecracker and the pain was the most severe that I’ve ever experienced by far.
The suffering that I had to endure was almost unbelievable.
That was over ten years ago. At the beginning I was having attacks
every 6 months. Then gradually I was getting them every 3 months, then every month and eventually
every week.It started at my big toe and then it was moving sometimes in my knees,and generally
all around my joints, in my feet.And the pain was agonising.
I have tried all the cures you can imagine.I tried ACV, lemons, drinking a lot of water, but to no avail.
I tried water fasting, juice fasting,baking soda, again without success.
I almost gave up meat, limiting it to only once a week ,gave up alcohol completely,again no success.
I was living on vegetables, lots and lots of fresh fruit, milk ,cheese beans and so on .My eating habits
could not be healthier ,or so I thought.But my gout was worsening.
Then I decided to increase the amount of fruit I was consuming, thinking that if some fruit is healthy, more
fruit will be more healthy.Some days I was eating fruit only ,others over 10 portions a day.
And alas my gout instead of improving it became chronic ,it was there all the time.
I was desperate I did not know what to do.And then one day accidentally I read an article about fructose,
which is contained in fruit in large quantities.It said that it increases uric acid, in a matter of minutes.
Fructose is also present in table sugar, and in HFCS, which is used in soft drinks.
I put two and two together and realised what I was doing wrong.
I stopped eating fruit and all other sugars, for a period of 3 weeks,and by magic I saw a dramatic
improvement.Pain was gone, swelling was gone, I was fine.
I re introduced fruit again in my diet but reducing them to 1 or 2 a day, and my gout almost disappeared.
I do eat more meat now, and occasionally have an alcoholic drink, and thank God everything seems to be fine.
Fructose was my enemy.

[Hof]

I share your pain of course and understand what you've been through. Just visited with a rheumatoligist and am about to begin taking this latest medicine called Uloric. Hopefully this will be my answer. My uric acid level has been at an eleven for most of three months now and my body aches everywhere presently. No particular flare up right now but am on the verge I'm sure. After doing much reading on gout it appears that there's so many things that can set one's uric acid off balance; but of course it's related to all our individual makeup. In my case alcohol may have tipped the scale for me but now it's almost anything. I will say though that my drinking habit is or was minimal. One cocktail daily and three to four on one particular day of the week during a social gathering. At this point I cannot wait to begin the Uloric to see if it will bring my uric acid to it's proper level. Knowing what I've been through on this last bout only frightens me to think what can come next if I don't get a handle on it. .......Thanks for sharing and good luck.:)

[fit foot]

Mmm... well something that did help me and I think I posted this before, was a gentle massage, I also found that cycling reduced the pain in my foot/toe, I guess if you think logically (and I'm not a doctor), the crystalls need to be dispersed gently somehow to releive the pain, so gentle exercise surely cannot harm? I found running before an attack or soon after helped a bit too.

For me, I think red wine is the culprit so I don't drink it any more,m or at least not much.

[Hof]

There's no doubt we all experience pain in various ways and at different levels. As far as myself, I always thought I did fairly well with different types of pain until gout showed up into my life. I could go into some of my pain experiences but the real issue is the level of pain gout has shown me. Having got through my last bout really made me look for something to help and at this point I'm about to begin Uloric and hope it takes my uric acid down to a level my body can handle. Presently my uric acid is 3x what it should be and am on a daily threat of a repeat flareup. I can only hope this will take care of the issue. Don't do anything rash as there's got to be something available to help eliminate the gout issue for you. Good luck.........Happy Thanksgiving as well, but be aware that turkey is high in purene as well causing that uric acid to rise most likely.

[podagra]

As excruciatingly painful as gout can be, it is the easiest and cheapest disease to treat, please try these baths, etc,
http://www.goutonline.net/showthread.php?t=10755