In tidying the old forums, I repeat the following question in it’s entirety:
Hello Everyone
I hope this subject isn’t that taboo on the forums, if the admin deems this as an unfit thread for this forums then please remove it at all costs, as I come from a legal state where I was able to get a prescription for MMJ. I am in no way advocating its use or in anyway promoting it, but I came here with some questions/thoughts and would love to get some feedback from fellow sufferers.
I have read on a few websites that cannabis mite be a possible candidate as an anti-inflammatory for arthritis, seeing as how gout is considered a form of arthritis it may seem that MMJ may be beneficial for gout sufferers. And there are other sites where it states that MMJ justs act like morphine in the sense that it helps the users forget about the pain while under the effects of marijuana.
I have noticed that when I have an attack and use MMJ it makes my joints feel more swollen/pressure than prior to consumption, but I only notice this when I try to put an pressure on the affected joint and that if I am just laying in bed it feels fine and helps takes my mind off of the attack itself. I have not noticed MMJ as a trigger for my gout, as I tend to use it on a semi-regular basis (2-3 times a week)
Whats everyones take on this? Is this something that I should avoid at all costs whether or not I am experiencing an attack or is this something that is okay to use recreationally in between attacks? Would very much like everyones feedback
I am impressed by the polite attitude, and I have no issue with discussing this topic. However, the debate has to be constructive and restricted to gout where it is legal to do so. I hate censorship, but not as much as I hate people wasting my time.
Responses to the original question include:
I have some experience with cannabis and having Gout. I find that cannabis tends to make me focus way too much on the affected area, I actually think it makes it worse and it tends to make me wreck my diet […] Short story long, cannabis is not going to help your attacks, only controlling your Uric Acid will do that
I emboldened the last sentence as I agreed with it strongly in the original discussion.
The final comment was:
Using the herbal remedy that you’re referring to can help or hurt depending on the method you use to administer it. I found that unfiltered, the smoke can cause a gout flare-up while when ingested or filtered well there is no flare-up.
This is a topic well outside my experience, so my only contribution is my earlier point about keeping the focus on getting uric acid levels safe.
If you have anything positive, interesting, or enlightening to add to this debate, please add it below.
If you prefer more widely accepted forms of gout treatment, please refer to my gout treatment pages.
Whatever the case may be for herbs, drugs of various flavors and effects, or regimens like the reduction of red meat, alcohol and processed foods, when I have a gout attack, I want pain relief!! I will take the Prednisolone, the Allopurinol, the Colchicine, the Uloric and even the Indomethicin. I will take one pill at a time, a handful at a time or by bucketfuls, however what I want from My Doctor, from my drugs or from the various regimens is “PAIN RELIEF!”
My Father was not a rich man, nor a poor man, not a sickly man nor a picture of health. He died from bladder cancer, which I now understand comes from his years of smoking. However, for the 2 decades prior to his cancer diagnosis, he suffered w/debilitating bouts with gout! His disease was serious enough to be hospitalized on many occasions! I saw and heard my Father, an All-American basketball player in college and normally a man of strength and resolve, crying and crying out for pain relief. Whatever there is to offer a chronic and serious gout sufferer, to treat the causes of Gout, sheer human decency decries their pain relief first! My Father is gone now for ten years but his gout lives on in me! This not a big toe problem. I have had flare-ups everywhere but the big toe!
I recently had my worst attack ever and was in bed for a couple of days short of 4wks. The flare-ups had hit my ankles and my Achilles! If you have not had your turn with that get down on your knees! I spent 24 hrs a day for 3wks with throbbing pain that would radiate up my leg to the knees! No amount of steroids, Uric acid reduction or dieting would stop it! Night after night I prayed for hydrocodone, morphine, medical marijuana or a bullet. 3 weeks of misery and another week of dissipating pain all with a Uric Acid level reading in the “normal” range! High at 7.85 but in the normal range! When in that sort of pain the societal arguments of good and bad drugs fade to irrelevancy!
You will never get pain relief with uric acid at 7.85.
I do not care if the statisticians decide that 7.85 fits within their mathematical normal range. The statisticians at a different lab will have a different range, so with them, you may be normal, or you may be high. It is totally irrelevant to the treatment of gout. Many a foolish doctor will disagree with me, but all who have done so to my face, soon look pretty sheepish when I ask them to explain why uric acid should not be treated when the crystallization point is around 6.8. As they are trying to think of something sensible to say, I hit them with the rheumatologists recommendation that uric acid in a gout sufferer should not be allowed to rise above 5 (6 might be sufficient with kidney impairment).
At that point, they reach for the allopurinol script.
If you have that type of doctor, you are going to have to supervise your own uric acid lowering program (with help from this gout support service).
Start with 100mg per day allopurinol. Get blood tests every 2 to 4 weeks, increasing the dose until you reach your target. 5mg/dL is the maximum target in normal instances, but you should aim lower for at least six months. This gets rid of old uric acid deposits quicker. You might need more than six months below 5 if you have had excess uric acid for many years.
Until uric acid is stable, you may need pain relief, which brings me back to the topic.
I do not care if you chose medical marijuana, colchicine, naproxen, or any other type of pain relief.
If you take pain relief without controlling uric acid, you are a junkie.
That is fine by me if it is your personal choice. Using drugs, whether they be recreational or pharmaceutical, just because some idiot in a lab fools your doctor into not taking gout seriously is not fine by me. It is plain wrong on every level.