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Unfortunately, I'll have to start the count over now. I woke up this morning to horrible pain in my knee and moderate pain in my elbow. I'm scratching my head over what has caused this. I am back on 600mg of Allo per day after a discussion with my doctor late last week. I've been very careful with my diet and have had no alcohol. I haven't overdone it on exercise, either. I couldn't do much exercise at all the past two weeks thanks to my back acting up. Hopefully this is still my body reacting to the 'cleansing' mode that I'm in, getting rid of all the excess uric acid that has built up over the past 15 years.
My knee is what really is puzzling me, though. I had some pretty bad pain in the back of my knee start up two days ago. This pain felt nothing like gout. It felt more like a torn ligament but there was no traumatic injury that could have caused this. My knee is in pretty bad shape as it is and I was told last year that I did have some very slight tears in my MCL and Patellar tendon. Those injuries should be healed by now, though. I'm just wondering if the pain was in fact related to those injuries resulting in a gout attack to the knee or if the pain was in fact gout from the get-go, but just in a place I had yet to experience that kind of pain. I don't know.
Anyway, it's quite frusturating. Gout attacks in my knee and elbow usually take the longest to go away, usually between 3-5 weeks. I really hope that isn't the case this time.
I have started up a blog where I will be diligently tracking my lifestyle and my gout. I'm hoping over time, I will be able to identify any triggers that cause attacks. Eventually, WHEN (cause it's gonna happen!) I do have my gout under control, I will be keeping track of my workouts and diet to see what works best to get me back in shape. My hope is, using myself as a guinea pig, that I can help others in my situation learn to control their gout and also stay in shape and stay active. Check it out if you're interested. I do still have some work to do on the site and a few things to add, but the tracking spreadsheet and a few daily posts are up now.
Nate- I think the searching out of old injury sites, not just gouts, is normal in the UA reduction process.
I've made some progress myself without UA meds as such, [just half dose Lasix+ Cozaar to avoid Thiazides] and frequently found twinges where gout has never happened , but injury certainly has.
At the same time twinges have occurred at old gout sites – or pain felt at pressure points in ankle [old site] etc.- which go away if taken as noted and eased off. One just has to appreciate the increased awareness Gout pain trains into you and accept that you will have to live round the issue using this knowledge.
I think your idea of a blog is a good one -to raise awareness as to how gout can hit young and be managed well ,too. As you're so active it will be a benchmark case.
I think that with the progress you've already made ,the knock on attacks will be much reduced in time.
[No guarantees, though
]You're probably right, Trev. I've got a feeling that the reason I had so many gout attacks in my ankles early on was because of all the sprains and breaks I had from sports. Same with my wrists and now my knees. I'm still keeping my chin up, staying positive and just viewing this as another bump in the road on my way to recovery. Luckily, it's supposed to rain here in Central Bavaria all weekend, so I won't feel too bad about staying inside 🙂
The severity of this attack did surprise me, though. I'm still planning on going to another doctor to have my knee checked out in the next couple of weeks. I need to see if it's healed properly or not and if I still need to get the knee scoped. After talking to some nurse and doctor acquaintances, the answer is probably Yes. I'm not happy about that, but it may be a necessity. I'm sure I can look forward to some further moderate gout attacks after the surgery too. Seems to always happen.
Have a good friday, Trev!
NateA said:
I'm scratching my head over what has caused this. I am back on 600mg of Allo per day after a discussion with my doctor late last week.
Did the increased dosage cause a sudden drop in UA which we know can cause flare ups?
Nate,
Stop going on and off the allopurinol…it is NOT a short term drug. If you want to explore the effects of the GOOD life why not do it while taking 300 mg. allopurinol. If you find you can get through a year without an attack, then perhaps you can titrate down to 200 mg. if your SUA allows it.
On and off allopurinol is a recipe for the worst kind of attacks.
Congrats on the 82 pain free days but that's still 9 attacks every 2 years…or 180 in the next 40 years. I doubt if any joint in the body can survive anywhere NEAR that.
zip – I never went off Allopurinol. We just dropped the dose from 600 to 300mg/day for one week. Trust me, I know it's a life-long committment. I'm back up to 600mg/day now and will be for at least a few more months. It's too long of a story, but I had too many doctors talking in my ear. I'm only seeing one now so that's been remedied.
By the way – yesterday I could barely walk, barely bend my knee and my elbow was horrible (I need to download the pics I took – it was bad). I needed immediate help so this attack didn't prolong itself. One day – yep, one day of prednisone and percocet and I was almost back to normal today. I'll be on the prednisone for a few more days as I taper off the drug, but I only had to take a couple of doses of the perc to deal with the pain and now it's done.
I just got back from a lovely day spent in Nurnberg. If you would have asked me yesterday, I would have told you that I'd be laid up for at least a week. My methods may not work for everyone, but they sure seem to work well for me when a bad attack comes on.
NateA –
That sure was a turnaround, just a day. My question, did you have any swelling? That was my big problem. It's been 6 weeks today, and my swelling in my foot is gone. But it didn't leave until almost a week ago. Still, I prop my foot up on pillows when looking a t.v. and still having pangs of pain now and then, in both feet. The left foot had the gout attack and I'm drinking pitchers of water like there's going to be a drought. My second blood test is tomorrow, the first 5 weeks ago showed a 10 and i've been on 100 mg of Allopurinol for 3 weeks.
Never thought anything about it when I got the first signs, 6-7 years ago. A spider bite? A sprained toe? That's what I thought, and the swelling and soreness lasted no more than 1-2 days.This one was a big wake-up call for me.
goutgal – yep, they do get worse with time and get worse the longer the attacks go untreated. Hopefully the 100mg of Allo will be enough. It seems most people take at least 200mg/day. Currently, I'm on 600mg/day. My next UA test is this Thursday. I'm hoping it's gone down a bit from the 5.8 I registered last month.
Sometimes the prednisone works wonders. I did have quite a bit of swelling in my knee and even took some pictures. I just haven't downloaded them off of the camera yet……. Currently, I've been battling another bad attack in my right hand and wrist. The prednisone this time was able to knock the attack back in three days. In the past, before I started taking prednisone, wrist attacks would last two to three weeks easy and were very, very painful to deal with at work.
I don't know if I'm an abnormal gout sufferer or not, but for a period of a few years, I was battling horrific attacks in multiple joints almost constantly. It all started slow enough with an attack every few months, but quickly escalated about five years in to having gout. It just got worse and worse and worse….. to a point of almost being unbearable. I'm really hoping what I'm doing now will put all this behind me eventually. Just being patient and counting these last two attacks as bumps in the road to getting better!
FYI – the only joint damage I have after having all my joints x-rayed last November was in my big toes. It's not bad and the doc said he could have it cleaned up quite easily with a simple surgery. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet or not but maybe some day down the road.
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