I have suspected acute attack of Gout. What a painful condition, I never thought a sore big toe could be so uncomfortable. Cant even stand the weight of the bed quilt touching it. Lots of Cocodamol and neproxan (Sp). Drinking plenty of fluids to flush out the urate.

Anybody else had this crippling condition?

Andy

 

Its a build up of urates in the system over a number of years. Im awaiting to have a blood test to confirm the condition. Various factors can cause it, rich food, alcohol, kidney issues, overweight-me. Triggers can be from exercising to illness. It can arise in any joint, big toe being the most common.

Mine came on all of a sudden one evening. It feels like I've broken my toe. Toe has swelled up and I cant walk or put pressure on my right foot!

 

Bloke at work had this. He said it was about the most painful thing he had ever had. Took a while to clear up too. Plenty of rest

 

Urates- uric acid. Everybody has uric acid in their blood, the kidneys remove it from the body. If the uric acid level rises then at some point it can trigger Gout.
These form as crystals in the joints and cause intense pain until it settles down. Ive been told a week to a month is the recovery period.

Andy

 

Doc might put you on Allopurinol to prevent attacks.........quite a number of my patients seem to be on this. The only problem they seem to have is occasional heartburn.

Shaun

 

Hope it gets better soon anyway.

Les

 

i thought gout was Booze related ?

not good in any case.

hope you a swift recovery

 

i have had gout a few times and it very painful, the first time was after going out for a Chinese and a few pints afterwards, woke up the next morning and thought i had broken my toe, went to A&E they told me i was wasting there time, then went to the doctors he confirmed gout, people assume its a old mans problem, i had it when i was 23.

 

Gout, seems to start in most cases in ear folds showing up like a punched ear which is red and sore to touch. This symtom leads through time to crystals further collecting in the big toe showing again as a reddish boil to look at but still very sore to touch and I mean extremely sore. You cannot put any pressure on it at all like bed clothes/shoes/socks.

After the big toe it can spread to other joints. Its a type of athritus.

Treatment of painkillers can work or work dependant on the person. I was told of a herbal remedy that seems to work for some it is Cherry pills made from cherrys and importantly the skin of the Cherry. It might work for you. Try googling it, they come mail order for mgood old USA. Doi not use the ones in the herbal shops they do not seem to be the same.

Gout comes in cycles speeding up as the condition worsens. Expect sore toe every 6 months or so. Other than Cherry pills I have not read or heard of any other cure. The local GP's are rather crap and do not offer any miraculious cure just treat the pain. It is not caused by drink or rich food, you form crystals which collect and cause side effects in joints. Hope this helps.

 

I've suffered Gout since about 1994.

There's nowt particular brings it on, attacks tend to be toes, joints in feet, ankles and last year both knees one week after each other. Tried Allopurinol before and had a bad attack whilst on the tablets so gave them up. After reading a bit more about them, this is a common side affect that you have to go through until the uric acid level settles down. After the knee attacks I went back on Allopurinol and so far so good. Only concern I had about Allopurinol was long term usage - but there doesn't seem to be anything in them that should give any problems.

You can try all the usual, healthy diet, cherry juice and bicarbonate of soda remedies but I gave in, and Allopurinol seems to do it for me.

As for pain relief and anti inflamatory when you get an attack - make sure you have a box of Diclofenic in the house, 3 a day for a couple of days with these and you'll be right as rain.

 

Skoobie Dhu

I would suggest anyone on Allopurinol just asks their dentist if there are any signs of dental erosion......I have no scientific basis for this apart form my patients saying they can have problems with heartburn / acid reflux

Shaun

 

Sure sign that you're all **** heads.
Like a bit of the ol' Port, do we?



The only people I've known to get it are/were in their 60's - 70's.

 

lots get it much younger - its an endocrine imbalance not necessarily an age thing

 

TRAMADOL helps.

 

Shaun, the people I know who have Gout also show signs of gut disorders like heartburn/acid reflux/ulcers before they had Gout. So restricitive to pain relief pills you can use without bringing on gut problems. But there own Doctor will prescribe accordingly though these can be less than effective to the pain. Sods law.

 

Never had any stomach problems either before or since starting Allopurinol - wiil watch for dental erosion though.

 

Well 8 days in, the swelling is starting to subside and I,ve been able to reduce the pain killers. I still can't walk properly only a few yards before the pain returns. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Doctors next week for blood tests to see what uric acid level

Andy

 

Seriously, Diclofenic is a must, tried other pain relief / anti inflamatory and nothing works as well as these. As far as I'm concerned, Diclofenic is a wonder drug
Get a box for the house just in case, after one day on the tablets I could move around ok, after 2 days it was sorted.

I'm on 300 mg Allopurinal, tried 100 then 200 but my uric acid levels weren't really dropping.

 

p.s. pain relief on it's own isn't enough, the Diclofenic is anti inflamatory and it helps break down the crystals that have formed in the joint.

 

As an update, I gave in with the 'just treat attacks' approach and started again on allopurinol as a preventative. I started taking allopurinol regularly last April, with blood tests every month to reduce my Uric acid level. Finally after increasing the daily dosage to 400 mg the allopurinol has reduced my Uric acid levels.

However...

I kept getting gout attacks despite being on allopurinol, I was referred to a specialist as part of the increase from 300 to 400 mg/day and he explained that altering the dosage will trigger small attacks - so I thought fair enough. I was prescribed colchicine to help the attacks subside.

Until recently that is..

About a month ago, my left ankle swelled and was very painful, I put this down to increasing the allopurinol dosage in the last couple of months - however the colchicine seemed to have little effect, and it returned to something near normal after a week or two. The doctor thought the symptoms were very similar to achilies tendinitis and suggested rest (anti inflamatories affect my kidney function)

Last week I suffered similar swelling in my right ankle and this time the swelling and pain are very serious (walking difficult). A different doctor again thought the symptoms were acute achilies tendinitis,

I'm still unable to walk and the swelling might have reduced slightly - but I've had time over the weekend to google if I could be having a reaction to iallopurinol - and low and behold, there seems to be a strong (but rare) link between allopurinol and swollen joints, particularly swollen ankles.

Needless to say I'll be speaking with the doc again tomorrow and hopefully coming off allopurinol.
When I think back, I've had instances of lighter swelling on my knees and ankle and we've always assumed it's been due to changing the allopurinol dosage (not helped by my irregular use till last year)

What I would say though, is that lots of folk respond properly to allopurinol and it manages their Uric acid levels properly - I just one of the unique cases.

Re reading the above posts as well - the dentist did note the I had some slight tooth wear over the last year - and my teeth are a bit more sensitive as well - hmmmm.

 

my girlfriend shouts "gout" when she falls out with me "gout the ****ing house" lol

 

That is not good to hear. I have a Mate who has gout but he rarely takes the correct dose if at all and has 5-6 serious attacks since I posted this in 2010.

Personally, Allupurinol has been a wonder drug and have not had any issues since I started taking it 5 years ago.

I hope you can sort out the problem

 

^what I would add, is that I'm surprised that both doctors that have looked at my swollen ankles have apparently missed the link between allopurinol and the swelling - as did the rheumatologist - he noted a swelling in my knee, and had it X-rayed - and even diagnosed it as fluid retention, yet still didn't make the link. Do these folk not use google? On a serious note, I'll need to approach it sensitively as I know how docs hate patients who self diagnose using Google.

P.s. Possibly in the doctors defence, neither were the doctor who's been treating my go it for the last year or so.

 

We're getting most ailments earlier, probably a lot to do with Vitamin D!

 

From Sniff Petrol about the new Bentley Mulsanne........Offering serious luxury.Spokesman said he sat in the back for two minutes and now has gout

 

I had attacks of gout for more than 20 years but just took painkillers. Two year ago my knee swelled up to more than twice its normal size with terrible pain. I thought I,d hurt my knee at work, but after tests I was told it was gout. Have taken allopurinal since and had no problems. Steve.

 

Beer is about the worse thing for gout, the darker, the worse and regular beer which has an accumulation

Allapurinol tends to systematically work through various joints previously affected (although you may not have experienced pain in the joint) causing flare ups. It's part of the process

I bet if you went on the wagon for a month and keep up on the allo. things would settle down. 400 is a fair bit though, although max dose can be 900 daily

Indometacin is still considered the best thing to bring down a flare-up, but THE most important thing is to recognise the first stage and then clobber the flare-up in the initial stage with plenty of indometacin before the flare-up takes hold

 

^ I'm not a beer fan, I probably have a handful of bottles of cider a month, or maybe a couple of glasses of wine. I've been back on regular allopurinol for about a year now, started on 100mg for a month, followed by blood tests, and increasing by 100mg till we reached the point where the Uric acid had reduced to an acceptable level. After my visit to the doc they'd like to explore other arthritic problems before giving up on the allopurinol, although we have reduced to 300mg in the meantime. Had my ankles Xrayed today to check for erosion or any signs of osteo arthritis - I had my knee Xrayed last year after a similar swelling incident and it showed nothing sinister other than fluid - I'm hoping the ankle X-rays show up the same.