Please help

[Keith Taylor (GoutPal Admin)]

I've recently discovered gout . Didn't know anything about it before I met my boyfriend. He is the one who has it, and I had no idea that I had actually brought on a bout of it – stress. The day he met me landed him a the doctors. I'd like to say I'm touched about having such an effect on the man but then I realised what kind of agony he was in. I've been looking up what causes this excruciating condition and he has to change his life style. List of foods he regulary eats , chocolate, lots of different nuts, alcohol, (he used to be a publican) seafood- lots of shell fish, lobster, scallops, oysters, mussels, he puts salt on everything and cooks with salt, Lots of red meat because he hunts, drinks very little water if any at all. On the plus side though he does eat a lot of vegetables but not much fruit

I've tried to get him to go off all these foods while he actually has a bout of it but to no avail……….he has an extremely high level of pain tolerance that boggles the mind. I've even tried to show him pictures of limbs with Tophi (that almost worked). but at the same time it embarrases him and he won't allow me to help him when he really is sick.

I also found out that giving a man a foot massage brings on gout as well.

What can I do to turn him around and begin eating and living a healthier lifestyle……..His friends don't help either, they all eat the same foods

I've heard cherries and cherry juice will help ?

[Keith Taylor (GoutPal Admin)]

Don’t believe everything you read.

There is absolutely no way that a foot massage can cause gout. It isn’t likely to do much good, but if he is not at the stage where the pain is too much to allow any contact, the increased blood flow might help a little.

You can read pages and pages of stuff about healthier lifestyle, but the most important issue is uric acid management.

If you can get this fixed over the next few months, with allopurinol or whatever his doctor advises to lower uric acid, then you can worry about diet and other stuff later.

He needs regular blood tests for uric acid and medication to get this down to below 6mg/dL. It is vital to do this now.

All your focus needs to be on getting uric acid down, and maybe encourage more water (or tea, coffee, milk, fruit juice etc). Allopurinol will do this, but changing the eating habits of a lifetime is likely to be a much slower process.

Worry about the diet later – you can get good advice hear – but your mission for today is to get that uric acid level permanently below 6mg/dL. Please don’t be distracted by anything else.

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