wolfcomment: ignore 'club soda' reference
the person who wrote 'club soda' and 'sparkling water' was describing 'mineral water' popular in europe, which is alkaline and contains trace minerals, similar to a pinch or two of 'celtic sea salt' in bubbly water. the bubbles make it easier to drink alkaline salt water. the salt water helps you retain more water in your cells aka stay more optimally hydrated.
Panache
May 16th, 2008
Results
I haven't had an attack since my last post, 4 months ago! I didn't use baking soda and am off allorpurinol. In fact, I am hydrating less than before and am not getting attacks!
All I had to do was monitor my heart rate and keep it from going beyond 160 during aerobic exercises. This apparently prevents the extreme fatigue that triggers high uric-acid production in my body.
I would encourage every gout sufferer who exercise regularly to try this too!
tommytowne
replied May 19th, 2008
I have had gout since my early 20's and I am now 34. Whenever I twist an ankle I get an attack. Whenever I walk a long distance and get sore knees or feet I get an attack. If a carry something heavy and twist my wrist I get an attack. I hate not being able to exercize and play sports/martial arts etc. I am always careful to not over exert myself.
I just signed up for a water aerobics and water weight lifting class at the YMCA and start in a few days. I am very excited about losing weight and regaining strength. I will let you all know how it goes.
painfree
replied May 19th, 2008
I have seen a medical journal paper that reports that one effect of anaerobic exercise (as opposed to aerobic exercise) is the cellular overproduction of xanthine oxidase, which is a link in the chemical chain that leads to overproduction of uric acid. Thus, it is possible that anaerobic exercise can lead to a gout attack in some people.
Exercise can also lead to a gout attack by another means. In earlier gout attacks, the body stopped the attack by stopping the immune system forming a coating around monosodium urate crystals. Exercise can rupture that coating, so that the presence of MSU is again detected, initiating the immune system's inflammatory response that causes more gout pain and inflammation.
rubberfeet
replied June 9th, 2009
Exercise Induced Gout
Firstly, looks like most of the people here who get gout are young..I am 34, and I got my gout since about 25. It was after heavy swimming and running. And that's when I had my first attack.
Since then, I tend to get it after heavy running, of course there are times when I didn't need to exercise to get an attack. I believe there is a real correlation between exercise (fatigue, lactic acid build up) and gout. It masks itself as a "sprain" after running when I did not sprain my foot. It will then creep up slowly within 2 days and becomes a major turn off.
I am writing so that more people can tell their doctors that exercising could be one of the bad reason for gouts, especially from what I have seen here. - young adults.
Even yoga can trigger gout from what I have seen. So exercise safe. And not go overboard. Usually I know it's coming when I "over-exercise".
Raylk
replied December 19th, 2009
Gout triggered by twisted ankle
I had my first bout of gout earlier this year. I'm battling another bout right now after twisting my ankle playing volleyball. I really am frustrated over this disease.
mistered2
replied December 19th, 2009
In my experience, high impact exercise can trigger gout in my toes or ankles. I assumed it was the impact and trauma to the area, from running hard. Reading here about the possibility of lactic acid triggering it is interesting, hadn't thought of that.
Also, I'm overweight and tried several times to lose weight, including doing more exercise, and I would get gout attacks. Even from walking and low-impact stuff. What was going on there, I think, is that when you shed a few pounds, and your body dissolves some of its fat, and there is uric acid stored in the fat that gets released, raising your levels and causing an attack. It sucks, it's a catch-22, being overweight can cause gout, but so can losing weight.
Someone said about drinking sparkling water. That does help, but not just carbonated water like club soda. It has be actual mineral water, with minerals in it. I drink Apollo mineral water from Germany, and just from the taste I can tell it is alkaline, because I tried baking soda and it tasted similar. I drink a couple glasses a day of this mineral water, and I think it helps. I have tried baking soda, but only during attacks, and it seemed to help a bit, but as far as using it daily always, I don't like the taste and feel it adds too much salt to my system, makes me feel weird. The mineral water, on the other hand, seems good and achieves a similar effect.
I read somewhere else on the net about someone who uses Celtic Sea Salt, a little bit in water, and it helped them with gout. Sea Salt doesn't have just salt, but other trace minerals. It's interesting, there may be some trace mineral that helps with gout.
I've had gout for 8 years. Exercise didn't trigger my first attack. It came after a business trip in which I had eaten steaks and drank a lot of alcohol. Travelling in airplanes and airports also dehydrates, so that contributed.
Anything that changes the relative balance of things in the blood can trigger it. In that sense, exercise can dehydrate you, raising the relative amount of uric acid in the blood, even if the absoluate amount stays the same, and therefore promote crystallization and therefore gout.
After my first couple of attacks, as part of trying to change my diet for the better, I began drinking unsweetened iced tea at lunch time. I got hooked on it, and made jugs of it at home to sip on at night watching TV. But then, I got a horrible gout attack after several weeks drinking tea. Ever since then, if I had two or three cups of tea across two or three days, I'd get an attack. My theory is that tea didn't have anything itself that triggered gout, but it is a diuretic, and caused the balance of things in my blood to change relative to each other, and so raised the relative percentage of uric acid in the blood.
I agree with what people have said about doctors. Modern doctors do not understand gout. They have read a blurb about it in some book, but that stuff is so general it's almost useless. My doctor I don't think has ever seen a case of it before me. Also, I think each gout sufferer's experience is different, different bodies are sensitive to different things, so the overly general stuff about avoid meats, poultry, legumes, blah blah blah, isn't useful, and everyone has to learn for themselves what things are good or bad for them, and I don't think it's the same for everybody. But for what it's worth, here's what's been good and bad for me.
Here's a summary of what has helped me in the past with gout:
> Black Cherry juice (but not Oceanspray's cranberry or cran-cherry juice -- turns out cranberry, though helpful for the urinary tract, is bad for me for gout).
> Gout Cure supplement, available online.
> Celery Seed extract
> Apollo mineral water
> Baking soda
> Half a glass of milk before going to bed
These things helped, however, my attacks still became more frequent over time.
Summary of things that contributed to gout attacks, that I learned to stay away from. When something is a problem, it's not immediate. If I eat or drink a trigger food, it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the bad effect to be felt.
> meals heavy with meat.
I could eat chicken and meat just fine, as long as it was easily digestible. Hamburgers, ground beef, fajitas with little bits of steak, or thin steak by itself, all these were fine for me, contrary to what general info about gout says. But one time I had Steak Gorgonzola at Olive Gardens, which is a thick slab of meat with a cream sauce, and that triggered gout. How I could tell a meal was going to affect me, is if I felt it was still digesting it hours later or through the night into the next morning. That kind of meal could trigger.
> Pork and ham
Though I can eat beef and chicken just fine, pork was a killer for me, just one piece in a meal could trigger. As a result, I learned to stay away from ham too, even the thin deli-style lunchmeat ham, though I could eat that occasionally. My family would have Honey-Baked Ham on Christmas, and I realized a couple of years ago that that was triggering gout for me, so I stayed away from it since then.
> Organ meats (kidney, liver, heart)
I never liked kidney or liver anyways so easy to stay away from.
But my mother-in-law is peruvian, and she likes to use kidney or liver once in a while in her dishes, and one time a sort of goulash dish she made with bits of meat and other stuff mixed in, I thought the meat tasted funny, turns out it was kidney, and sure enough, by two days later I had gout attack.
Also, I tried something called "anticuchos", peruvian dish with a shiskabob/skewer with bits of heart meat on it. Very tasty, but blam, problem.
> Alcohol (mixed drinks, liquor) and wine, but beer OK
One rum and coke could trigger gout. I tried other stuff, whisky, tequila, some are better or worse than others. Tequila was the least bad, I could get away with a shot every now and again. Rum was the worst. But I learned to just not have any liquor at all.
Wine also bad, especially red wine. There were times that I indulged, and had 2 or 3 glasses of red wine, and blam, problem.
Beer, on the other hand, is fine, contrary to what I've read that it can be worse than liquor. I drink beer frequently and it's hardly been a problem. I say hardly, because obviously if I drink a lot of it over several days, it has caused mild attack. Two pints a day, no problem, even every day. One night of 6 pints, and 4 the next day, and 4 the day after that, then yeah, problem, but I don't drink like that all the time, only two or three times a year on special occasions.
> Tea (green tea, lipton tea, black tea)
I love tea and miss it dearly, but tea triggers gout in me. I may be the only one with that, I never heard another gout sufferer mention it, even when I searched the internet. On the contrary, I came across articles saying tea is good for gout. Not for me.
People say drink water. Yes, avoid dehydration, but beyond that, drinking extra water didn't help me. I think once your body is bad at eliminating uric acid, doesn't matter if you drink more water, your body will expell the water, but not the uric acid. Anyways, that was the case with me.
I was scared of trying colchicine and allopurinol, but a year ago I was having attacks more frequently and one really severe one that had me on crutches. So, I gave in and asked my doctor to prescribe colchicine and allopurinol.
I used the colchicine to help with attacks, and took it for like two months, one a day, to prevent attacks. It worked great, but it also made me anemic. I didn't have the anemia confirmed by blood test, but I was very tired, and even having dizzy spells, and my wife who has had anemia that was confirmed by blood tests, said those are the symptoms. I read the extended use could cause permanent anemia and that scared me, I stopped taking it. The anemia went away. I still take it when if get an attack, because if used briefly I think it is safe, just not on extended basis. I used to use naproxen against attacks, but once an attack progressed to a certain level, the naproxen was useless. Colchicine, on the other hand, is great even on a strong attack. Doesn't stop it completely immediately, but reduces it and makes the attack end sooner. Colchicine is the best anti-inflammatory against gout. The good news is, because of using allopurinol (read below), I haven't had attacks and haven't had to take colchicine for a long time now (not since 8 months ago).
The doctor gave me prescription of 300mg allopurinol. Didn't tell me squat about how to take it etc. Sure, bottle says one a day. Well, I tried it, but just one pill made my foot hurt within hours, and I had just recently had a gout attack and wasn't in the mood for another, so I stopped it. I used colchicine instead, which was new for me too, and found it to be very good, until I got anemia and decided I can't take it on extended basis. So, after some months, I decided to try allopurinol again. Took it for three days. Felt like crap, extremely tired, and my kidneys actually hurt and ached. And my foot hurt a bit, but not a full-blown attack. Stopped it.
Then, I found out reading more on the internet, that you should start slow, with lower dosages, and build up to a higher dose. So I cut my pills in half, making them 150mg, and started that... that was fine. Also, the first days of taking it, have to drink a lot of water. Allopurinol makes you urinate like a race horse the first days. Before, when I would have beers with my friends, they'd all be getting up to go to the bathroom, and I could sit there the whole time, not needing to go until the very end when we paid the bill. I was proud of my strong bladder. Now I realize that was a sign of the gout, my body doesn't eliminate stuff well. Once I started the allopurinol, and I'd be out with friends, then I was the first to be running to the bathroom. So, I got past the initial period of allopurinol by using the lower dosage and drinking lots of water. After two months, I went up to the 300mg pill, and having been taking it daily since.
That was 9 months ago, and I haven't had a single attack. I've been able to eat and drink more liberally without consequences, been able to do more exercise and lose some weight, without consequences. It's been life-changing. I wish I had started allopurinol years ago. Even after starting it, I did have a couple of minor gout incidents, but not even attacks. Just a chronic stiffness with mild discomfort that last days before slowly subsiding. But that was in the first three months of usage. For the last 8 months, nothing, perfect. Well, three months ago I did feel anemic again. I take an iron/B12 supplement and now I'm good. Seems allopurinol is flushing not only uric acid out but maybe some other stuff.
Well, that was my long story about gout, hope it's helpful.
mistered2
replied December 19th, 2009
Me again, wanted to add one more thing that helps. Wearing wool socks at night in bed seemed to help. Wool has some property that it whicks away moisture from the skin, keeping you warm but if you sweat, keeps you dry. That seems to be the key. Because if I used other types of material to keep my feet warm, they would just sweat, and still wake up with them stiff and gouty. But wool socks have been good. I ordered them online from Lands End, but any wool socks would work.
painfree
replied December 21st, 2009
One of the theories promulgated by gout experts about why gout attacks occur most frequently during sleep in the feet is that the reduced body temperature during sleep is most severe in the extremities. The lower body temperature reduces the concentration of uric acid that the blood can hold in solution, which results in the precipitation of the uric acid crystals which the immune system react to with the severe pain and inflammation of gout. If this theory is correct, then the wool sock remedy suggested by mistered2 makes sense.
During the time in which I suffered from gout, I learned that theory and went a step further. I began sleeping with an electric heating pad on my feet. They were the warmest part of my body. It didn't work. I got gout attacks in my feet anyway. [why not try the wool socks trick, maybe its more than just mere temperature]
What did work for me was the discovery and resolution of my sleep apnea. Most doctors haven't figured out yet why sleep apnea causes gout attacks, even though the basics were described in pulmonology journal literature over 20 years ago, and even though they know that most gout attacks develop while sleeping.
BobbyCharles
replied April 4th, 2011
Thank you for confirming this for me. I am going in tomorrow morning for my sleep study I too found an article indicating the same thing. It seems to be the only really reliable common thread as to what has lead to and continues to cause my gout. Despite the fact that I have lead a very health-conscious life with excellent diet and vigorous activity since I was 16 YO, I have been plagued with elevated BP and now really painful gout for no apparent reason. I am now 34 and still maintain as good habits as ever save for my running activity which has been completely suspended due to effing gout. A link citing some information over that study follows below. Thank you again for bringing this back up.
link:
Jerrybarnes
replied February 15th, 2010
Hi pain free
what are u doin for your sleep apnea?
Jerry
painfreereplied February 16th, 2010
Hi Jerry,
What works for me is I have trained myself to never roll over onto my back while sleeping. I sleep on my side always. The sleep docs call this position therapy. It is most effective only people who are not overweight, and even then it doesn't work for some with normal body mass index who experience sleep apnea.
To use this therapy effectively, I know that I need to have good indicators to show that it is working. Indicator #1 is no more gout attacks. Indicator #2 is my wife telling me that I am not snoring. Indicator #3 is no more artial fibrillation ( a heart arhythmia). Indicator #4 is that my diabetes has receded so that my blood sugar is in acceptable range with no medication, although I need to maintain a low glycemic index diet to keep it that way.
Jerrybarnes
replied February 16th, 2010
Thanx to the reply
I have severe obstructive sleep apnea unfortunately so I use Cpap
After reading this Forum ive begun paying attention to many things
I do Bikram yoga ( hot yoga) that has help my body ,but im wondering
how with my diet maybe that explains my gout attacks and foot pain over the years!
My Uric acid has always come back High around 9 or 10
My doc is recommending Allurpurinol
I think im gonna try it ( i hate drugs.....but)
The life experiment continues! lol
painfree
replied February 16th, 2010
Hi Jerry,
I hope that you always use your CPAP, and that it is properly set to be effective for your needs. Just a few hours of sleep without [CPAP] or with an improper setting can lead to a gout flare.
...
joehasgouttoo
replied December 17th, 2011
soda loading
After reviewing all postings I am seeing something confusing here and that is people claiming that both soda as in Club Soda(acid) and baking soda (alkaline)help. If one helps, the other would be counter productive. I suspect the baking soda would help dissolve uric acid crystals, and the Club Soda would either not help or be counter productive.... thoughts? (I hope this is still an active site)
No comments:
Post a Comment