Gout diet restrictions are important, but not as important as you might think.
Sensible diet restrictions for gout must follow your treatment plan. If you put diet before treatment, you are putting the cart before the horse.
See how to follow sensible dietary restrictions for your gout, then you will help your gout treatment, not hinder it.
I introduce restrictions first in my Gout Diet Guidelines, because this is the best starting place. It links gout diet to gout treatment so that you make the right changes to your diet. If you put diet before treatment, you will find it hard to improve your gout, and you might even make it worse.
Dietary Restrictions For Gout
There are two vital dietary restrictions for gout:
Do not accept lifestyle limitations until you know how they affect YOUR gout:
- You must have a Gout Management Plan so that you know your gout diet restrictions.
- No single food is important in isolation – diet restrictions for gout require a total food management plan, not just a few selected foods.
Gout Management Plan
Though I cover this in depth in the Gout Treatment guidelines, and in the Understanding Uric Acid & Gout section, I must summarize the key points here.
You must follow these steps so that you know which gout diet restrictions are important. Through talking to thousands of gout sufferers, I’ve seen many cases of what goes wrong when you put diet before treatment. Here is a small selection of pointless gout diet restrictions:
- Restricting purines in food, when the answer is to switch blood pressure meds to gout-friendly options
- Wasting money on supplements and herbal remedies when uric acid is too high for anything but the strongest uric acid lowering meds
- Wasting effort on low inflammation diets that are not adapted for uric acid control
All these complications, and many more, arise if you restrict your gout diet without knowing exactly what needs to be restricted. A good plan will identify sensible gout diet restrictions, and also indicate extra foods that might assist your treatment plan. My simple overview of a gout management plan to identify sensible gout diet restrictions is:
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- Gather information, confirming the diagnosis, with your best assessment of why and how you might have gout. The assessment must measure your uric acid level. Your doctor should do this regularly for all gout patients, but if you cannot get this service, you can buy effective home uric acid test meters.
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- Objectives for your gout management plan. What is your target uric acid level? Will you achieve it through medications, dietary restrictions or a combination of both?
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- Develop your plan to get rid of the Uric acid crystals (also called Urate deposits) in your body. This can be medication, dietary restrictions, or a combination of both.
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- Monitor the plan until all urate deposits dissolve, then adjust your medications and dietary restrictions to maintain uric acid levels at 5 mg/dL (0.30 mmol/L). Gently Tend your gout, forever.
Gather information, set Objectives, dissolve Urate deposits, then Tend forever. ⒼⓄⓊⓉ.
Until you reach the final stage, you will probably need pain relief. I discuss some inflammation reducing foods elsewhere in this Gout Diet Section. However, it is unlikely that, unless you have a high pain threshold, you will be able to avoid gout pain therapy. Usually this involves drugs, but my Gout Treatment section also covers non-drug gout pain therapies including T.E.N.S. machines, low level laser, and acupuncture. For pharmaceutical gout pain relief, see Gout Pain Relief in 2 Hours.
Food Management Plan
Your food management plan can be simple or complicated.
The simplest diet restrictions for gout start with a general healthy eating plan. I recommend an alkalizing gout diet menu, but other healthy eating plans, such as Mediterranean style diets, are also good starting points. For most gout sufferers, adopting such a plan, maintaining a healthy weight, and enjoying regular gentle exercise is enough.
In extreme cases, especially where gout patients want to restrict gout medicines in favor of dietary improvements, you might need to consider other options. Your treatment plan will tell you what diet restrictions are appropriate for you. This might include any or all of:
- Restricting calories to reduce the amount of internally produced purines
- Restricting iron rich foods
- Restricting animal purines in food
- Restricting fasting, feasting, or other bad eating habits that make gout worse
Next Steps For Gout Diet Restrictions
You must identify the gout diet restrictions that will help you, and avoid lifestyle limitations that are pointless. There is an amazing amount of information to consider when planning your gout diet, but you will only make sense of it if you have a gout management plan. The rest of my Gout Diet Guidelines will help you build your personal gout diet management plan. If you need personal help beyond my gout diet guidelines, please ask in my gout forum.
Leave Gout Diet Restrictions to browse the Gout Diet Guidelines.
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