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Hi Jobu, I did notice a Purple/blue coloration to my toes during the hieght of my very severe attack back in August. I think GP may be right about crystals restricting blood flow. I know that these days I no longer have the “discoloration”.
chacho, as I’m sure the others will point out shortly, your only hope is lowering your uric acid level. How you go about doing that task is mainly up to you and your rheumatologist. Allopurinol has been a successful method for some here. In my case, Uloric is the drug of choice. The common denominator for us all though is getting our uric acid level down and keeping it down.
Dan said:
Rick: Hows that going with the baking soda. Did it raise your blood pressure? or upset your stomach?
Dan, so far, I notice no effect one way or another but it’s only been a week since I started. I purposely take it at night when hopefully digestion won’t be an issue.
Jeff, most of the reading that I’ve done on beer drinking points to a max of 24oz before the tinges start in most people but as they say your mileage may vary. I’m totally paranoid of doing anything that may start a flare up at this point and time so I have no personal experience in the matter.
Rooster, congrats on getting down to seven, don’t stop the AP unless told to do so by your physician. I guess you’ll have to avoid raising your blood ph with high calcium but you might want to discuss this with your rheumatologist. I’m in the crystal disolving stage and have started taking half teaspoon of baking soda in 8oz of water before retiring in the evening as a precaution against kidney stones.
zip2play said:
MEtamorph’s link is ver good. let me repeat it here:
Yep, good read.
I’m seeing a Rheumatology and immunology specialist here on Staten Island. If it wasn’t for her I would probably still be in the hospital. As has been chronicled here in these pages by the others the medical community is not very knowledgeable about gouty arthritis and many don’t take this affliction seriously. This specialist seems to me to know more about gouty arthritis than anyone else, including my primary physician, that I’ve been in contact with in the medical community. Under her care since August of this year I have progressed from not even being able to go to the toilet on my own to living fairly normally but with tinges of disolving crystals. By my own choice I have weened myself from all pain medications and currently take 0.6mg cholchicine twice daily and 40mg of Uloric once daily.The Uloric is not the popular drug on this forum that Allopurinol is but I figure if I’m going to continue paying this doctor for my care I might as well take what she prescribes. If your interested I could put up contact info.
2nd, I’ve been taking 40mg of Uloric for a little over a week now and so far nothing adverse to report. I will be going to the lab in two weeks so I’ll have an SUA reading before my mext visit to the specialist.
I agree, Trev. After all the reading I’ve done on this subject since August, I’m sure the thirty pounds I gained in the year previous to my current gout attack played a role. Just how large a role is hard to say but I’m eating less now than I had been and have actually lost a few pounds since August even though much of my time was spent laying around suffering from the attack. I’m not convinced on the veggie thing so much though. I mean there is lots of purine rich food out there even in veggies. (Hops in beer comes to mind.) We gout sufferers do need to take charge of our diets and maintain reasonable weight along with daily excersise and as I see it, Mom had the right advice, “Everything in moderation” (Except maybe purine rich foods.).
Instead of getting smaller, with cholcicine 0.6mg twice a day, my tophi is growing from my big toe joint back along the side of my foot and it still has a spot where it is draining. I’m going to call the specialist tomorrow and see if she will let me take the colchicine four times a day and try to get a handle on disolving the crystals. From research I’ve done this will probably mean diarhea as a side effect but I gotta do something.
No sooner than I make he above post and then come across this, http://ndt.oxfordjournals.org/…..l/20/2/431
This question was posted back in June but I think it’s a subject that’s hard to get useful data/info about. I have a large tophi on my left toe joint for some weeks now. (Unlike you, Gail, I have been diagnosed with gouty arthritis.) A portion of it has been draining and there is what seems to be a white plug which goes very deep, possibly into the joint it’s self, and I’ve been trying to find info about the proper care of this and if it will ever heel or will I be left with a big hole where this tophi is. So far no luck.
Lots of good questions/points raised here and I hope this won’t muddy the issue but I can’t help but wonder if alcohol use is anymore/anyless a demon than any high purine food. Speaking with my own real world experience in mind, beer/wine/hard spirits have been something I’ve enjoyed with high purine foods. For instance during barbecue season, I have always enjoyed fine cold beers along with the brisket. Which one of the two is more likely to cause me an attack? As Trev points out, unless we do the blood work we really can’t say, can we?
Zip, your point about starting and stoping therapy is one my specialist has been stressing from the beginning and probably more important than which particular therapy a person may be on. Up/down spikes are sure to be problematic and only prolong the inevidable. Or at least that is what I’m gleaming from what I’ve been reading here and else where.
I am just starting Uloric therapy at a 40mg dose once a day. I have already been taking 0.6mg of Colchicine twice a day, 20mg of prednisone once a day and 500mg of Naproxen once a day. My specialist advises that the goal is to be sure and steady and to try to avoid ups/downs/spikes. At this point, the only thing I know for sure is that life without prednisone is unliveable. My specialist cautions me that the prednisone is only a temporary treatment until the UA level becomes steady and low. Seems all I can do at this point is to wait and see and make sure I remain hydrated.
