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Hi all, still really new to the forum but its helped me learn so much more about this crippling disease. I was unsure about taking allopurinal forever but got persuaded last week by people on here, I'm just waiting for my current attack to calm down before I start. I'm just a bit concerned because I've just read on the internet that allopurinal and cholcichine can lower your sperm count, I'm only 29 and am planning to start a family in the future ? Whats your views on this ? Should I be concerned ?
thanks in advance
charlton
There's probably somehting to it, but the extent is not clear. If you are worried, why not have a sperm count done before and after the alllopurinol and ascertain for yourself. If the effect is noteworthy, then you can seek another path. But be warned, alternatives to allopirinol and colchicine for gout sufferers is hard to come by and gout is eventually very much a killer so it cannot be ignored.
zip2play said:
gout is eventually very much a killer so it cannot be ignored.
what u serious? how does it kill a person?
Zip- Gout a ' Killer'… were you speaking figuratively here?
I'm surprised you didn't answer this query- as it looked genuine.
I did read somewhere that gout could get to the heart in someway- but still not certain if this was just a way of describing general debility leading to cardio issues.
From “Does hyperuricemia affect mortality? A prospective cohort study of Japanese male workers:”
These results showed that hyperuricemia has a strong association with the RRs [relative risks] of death in all causes, coronary heart disease, stroke, hepatic [liver] disease and renal [kidney] failure, and indicated that serum uric acid seems to be a considerable risk factor for reduced life expectancy.
More importantly, the recent “Allopurinol and mortality in hyperuricaemic patients” concludes:
Our findings indicate that allopurinol treatment may provide a survival benefit among patients with hyperuricaemia.
It is most commonly thought that even Christopher Columbus died of gout!
A cute read from the TImes a while ago:
But I'll bet other gout sufferers weren't laughing at Harry. Way back in the 17th century physician Thomas Sydenham gave a description of a gout attack which is still regarded as a classic, and there's nothing comical about it. It goes:
“The victim goes to bed and sleeps in good health. About two o'clock in the morning he is awakened by a severe pain in the great toe; more rarely in the heel, ankle or instep.
“This pain is like that of a dislocation, and yet the parts feel as if cold water were poured over it. Then follows chills and shiver and a little fever. The pain which is at first moderate becomes more intense. With its intensity the chills and shivers increase.
“After a time this comes to a full height, accommodating itself to the bones and ligaments of the tarsus and metatarsus. Now it is a violent stretching and tearing of the ligaments, now it is a gnawing pain and now a pressure and tightening. So exquisite and lively meanwhile is the feeling of the part affected, that it cannot bear the weight of bedclothes nor the jar of a person walking in the room.”
Sydenham was a goutie himself, and noted stoutly: “Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals, and philosophers have all died of gout.”
Famous sufferers have included Nostradamus, John Milton, Christopher Columbus, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, King Lobengula and Queen Anne.
The most common way that gout kills is by cumulative attacks on the kidneys resulting after many years in end stage kidney failure. But there's good evidence to support high uric acid as VERY involved in atherosclerotic heart disease.
Yes, untreated gout is a killer, no joke.
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