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Keith (Gout Admin) said:
The meters do seem sensitive to droplet size ? a fairly common problem until one gets totally familiar with the testing routine. Look carefully at the test strip after surprisingly low or high readings, then retest if the test area looks sparsely covered or overfilled.
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I, definitely, agree with you on that. ?It took me me several weeks to get it pat. 1/8 of an inch or ~3mm diameter is needed for the blood drop.
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Here are my figures for the time I have been on Uloric
Date SUA Reading Date ? SUA Reading ? mg/dl ? mg/dl 7/1/2010 6.5 10/2/2010 6.5 7/1/2010 5.5 10/9/2010 6.4 7/3/2010 7.2 10/14/2010 7.3 7/10/2010 5.8 10/16/2010 6.8 7/17/2010 7.3 10/23/2010 9.5 7/24/2010 6.4 10/24/2010 6.7 7/31/2010 7.0 10/25/2010 4.9 8/7/2010 6.4 10/30/2010 6.1 8/14/2010 6.3 11/6/2010 6.5* 8/21/2010 6.6 11/13/2010 4.1* 8/28/2010 6.7 11/20/2010 6.1 9/4/2010 7.5 11/22/2010 7.0 9/11/2010 6.1 11/22/2010 5.2 9/15/2010 5.8 11/27/2010 6.5 9/15/2010 7.5 12/4/2010 5.7 9/18/2010 7.9 12/11/2010 5.7 9/25/2010 5.9 12/18/2010 5.3* *=Uloric 80 mg ?
I tried to add a nice colored picture for better understanding, but Keith would not let me. What do you have against my art work, Keith???
? ? zip2play said:
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I am going to disagree with Keith on the issue of allopurinol and body size. It seems logical to me that dosing?should depend on body mass, at least LEAN body mass.
…
Zip, I think, both, you and Keith are correct.
You said: “Thus the bigger man>> the more food he eats>> the more purines he eats>> the more nucleic acids he breaks down>> the greater the need for allopurinol to control to safe levels.”?
I agree with you on that point. ?
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Keith said: “The correct way to use allopurinol is a 3 phase dosage, based only on uric acid numbers.”?
I agree with Keith on his point.
And I don't believe that there is much of a disagreement that the SUA level?must?be below 5 in order to live a care/flare/attack-free gouty life, regardless of weighing a 100 pounds or three hundred pounds.
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Green Toe said:
… Ironic how alcohol/big tobacco get to roam the streets, hence they are more of a poison to the body than marijuana is.…
I think one of the reasons why it is still illegal in most states is the drug cartel. They are still getting some profits which they would not if it was federally legalized. Look at other countries where American (and that includes Columbian) drug cartels don't have a firm grip on the people as well as on the governments.
trev said:
1) Anyone know what happens when the sample cools on way to lab?
2) Do crystals precipitate and reduce the UA in solution thus reducing the reading gained?
3) I agree with the consensus that it's not absolutely critical what a level is -when looking at attack levels and treatment effect- but there are already too many variables in gout, to start with.
4) I can see that this topic is even more hard to nail than the usual suspect -of when to sample and what to make of the result, by many health carers.
Trev:
1) I don't Think that any one really knows. One thing for sure, SED labs refrigerate their samples before tests. Other than that a lot of things may/can happen and the average layman would not get any info from the labs or doctors what's being done.
2)?That's a big mystery. UA in the blood is a solid (tiny crystals.) One cannot really say that the UA is dissolved in the blood. Second, to my knowledge, UA only precipitates as a MSU (mono sodium urate salt) We are not dealing here with a simple chemical process where an acid or salt (when added to water) split into positive and negative particles. We are dealing with blood as the solvent=carrier. I don't believe that we have any different electrical particles in blood. The different UA figures in blood at different temperatures is to me a complete mystery Why the figures are higher for higher temps doesn't make sense to me. ?Yeah, if some of that UA would have precipitated and it could be filtered out I could see a difference in UA concentration. But I don' t think that ?that is really happening; ?Some light could be thrown on it by having a lab test the same blood sample at various temps.
3) But Trev, I venture to say that the level is critical. If the “true” figure was 7.2 and the “not-so-true” figure 5.2 the the whole rigmarole would/could become critical because too much UA is in the system ?(in reality if 7.2 is TRUE.) Attack/flare could be imminent, chances for tophi to form are increased, kidneys may have to work harder to get rid of the UA/MSU and who knows what else.
4)?You are definitely right with your assessment. And, honestly, I don't know if I am spinning my wheels or not.
odo said:
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My guess is that Drs are not terribly concerned about results that vary between less than 2mg/dl. Also, when you consider the normal fluctuation of SUA in the course of a day due to various factors: diet, exercise, hydration etc., …
Due to the fluctuations you mentioned, I have been taking my home tests generally at about the same time and under similar conditions to minimize those affects.
I am sure you are right regarding Dr's take on the subject.
zip2play said:
hans,
?
…it must be frustating to consistently get a point lower with your tester than at the lab. …
How are the foot and the finger doing?
Zip, it's the other way: I get higher readings with my kit and they are pretty consistent. I do trust my kit as much as I trust the lab readings. Once I figured out how much blood I need for the test I haven't had any problem getting decent readings.
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My foot and finger are doing fine. Both still have plenty of tophy left, but are not painful or disabling. I am hoping (banking) on getting rid of them with the Uloric 80.
Things are going so good that I was able to go sailing again yesterday. A first for me: My first sail as an “eighty”.?
Star said: Star said:
?
Anything would be helpful.
?
Print Manuka Honey in the SEARCH field of the upper right-hand corner and you'll get 4 posts. Read them all, but particularly the last two which deal with Manuka honey. It was that particular honey which healed my open tophi wounds. You'll see a photo of them. I'll be glad to direct you to my supplier of the honey.
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newman said:
… I can't afford to miss a week of work if I can avoid it through knowledge. I have never been in a chat room ……after college went straight to Alaska to avoid the tech world….but I need help.
Newman, where have you been for the last 53 years? Still hiding in Alaska to avoid facing life and its challenges?
Let me tell you as to “can afford” or ” can't afford”: When your health is impaired, and having GOUT, your health is impaired, Mother Nature does not give a damn what YOU can or cannot afford. You are at the beginning of the end, meaning, you have started now with gout and you'll end with gout. (Once you have gout, you have it for the rest of your life.) There is only one way to live with it: MANAGE GOUT, as GoutPal has been trying to pound in to our heads for the last 4-5 years, or so. Therefore, when you have an attack and CAN'T walk, use your time to peruse GoutPal's forum here and if you have your eyes, ears, and mind open, you'll find out what to do and then you can tell your doctors what to do (since most of them know very little about gout.) “… kidney, UA level, and liver were “normal”… don't mean doodle do. You need concrete figures.
I am sorry to talk to you in “generalities”, but GoutPal already told you above what the score is and what to do.
odo said:
Post edited 1:56 pm – November 15, 2010 by odo
hansinnm said:
Post edited 3:19 pm – October 28, 2010 by hansinnm
Naproxen is a pain killer
Nope, sorry to be picky, but Naproxen is a NSAID. Its action as an anti-inflammatory may well reduce pain, but that is not its primary function. Morphine, codeine etc. are pain killers.
That'OK, Odo. It does not matter to me what they classify Naproxen, all I know and care about is that it DOES KILL THE PAIN. It is not that “Its action as an anti-inflammatory may well reduce pain, but that is not its primary function” , as far as I am concerned, it does reduce the pain.
zip2play said:
Post edited 12:54 am – November 8, 2010 by zip2play
Thanks, Zip, for taking the time and effort to comment in length to my post.
Just a couple peripherals:
We HEAR anecdotal stories about “an SUA of 10″ without gout. It may be just that, anecdotal. I'll stick my neck out and say, show me a person who tests a 10 SUA and I'll show you a man who will be writhing in pain within a year.
I hope you are not putting your head on the guillotine block. With approx. 65 million Gouties walking this globe and 6 billion, 435 million non-gouties surrounding them, I am sure there are plenty of non-gouties with a SUA of 10 or more who aren't screaming bloody murder because of gout attacks.
You said “Don't bore me/us with pH's, temperatures, MSU's crystals, tophi, and whatever else is floating around the globe.” but it very well might just be the concurrence of unfortunates that at one tiime and place for one individual in ONE joint that these come together and crystals form. Once crystals form there is a locus of precipitation and the body can no longer keep a supersaturated serum/synovial fluid. More crystals grow atop the other crystals. Once a goutie, always a goutie.
I am saying it because I know that those factors have an influence, but they don't explain gout or answer my questions.
The only difficulty is the WHY of the original precipitated crystals.
To that why is the compounded why of the immune system attack. It is the same question asked by a person who gets bitten by a yellowjacket and says DAMN! and another person drops dead from anphylactic shock. Some immune systems obviously ignore a uric acid crystal whiile others are driven WILD by it.
Some people were immune to plague in the 13th century and an aside that is fascinating: descendents of these people have a highly disproportunate immunity to AIDS.
How do you know? Who kept records of the people from the 13th century? I don't think anybody was being diagnosed with AIDS in the 13th century. That expression wasn't even coined until the 20th century.
If we were all the same, the human race would have been wiped out by the 1918 influenza. Diversity is our friend but the price of diversityy is that some of us have gout, polio, tuberculosis, cancer, psoriasis, lupus, and warts.
That does NOT explain “WHY?” So, what's “DIVERSITY?
As for the writing in pain with an SUA of 5.0 mg/dL, remember the concentration next to a pure urate tophus is 100% or with an assumed densityy of 1.87 that's an SUA of 187 grams/dL (or 100 grams of water) or 187,000mg./dL and that's a HELL of a lot of urate….twenty eight THOUSAND times the soluble limit. So to have it disperse around the edges and immediately reconstiitute itself would be the rule rather than the exception. That's why dissolving big tophi is so challenging. It's like trying to dissolve Mount Rushmore with a water pistol.
That's also why it is so important to lower uric acid before the first perceptible tophus forms. In an ideal world, brilliant doctors would be able to diagnose gout at the first sign of the first attack and begin treatment to guarantee a second attack never occurred.
There is an evolutionary benefit to uric acid, of that I am certain and I very much doubt it has ANYTHING to do with it being reducing agent (aka antioxidant, like wood) becasue there are thousands of reducing agents…like ALL FOOD. That benefit is, to date, alas, unknown. It may never be known. I am also convinced that it has something to do with man's overeating of meat and protein (hence, the rich man's disease and now Everyman's disease) and I also suspect it plays a role in man's intelligence…there have just been too many geniuses with gout.
Here is a monkey wrench (thrown in by Lynn, the lady who gave me the 80 mg Uloric):
http://www.thepaleodiet.com/ne…..;
The guy, certainly, has a point about our ancestors being/having been ferocious meat eaters. And most farmers, today, are meat eaters. So they all should be GOUTIES, around the world.
It's probably hormonal: prepubescent boys don't have it, premenopausal women rarely get it.
It is a man's disease.
Hell, NO, it ain't a man's disease! Zip, you are not only putting your head on the guillotine block, you are having all the gouty women all over the globe hunting you down and retiring the guillotine executioner.
If good records were kept it would be curious to see if castrati ever got gout. It would be informative to compare testosterone levels with gout…Alzheimer's development with gout.
You got a good point, there.
But in the modern world if there's no money to be made, there's no funded research. PURE science is a thing of the past. If you can make billions or blow up a city then there's money.
This is the one and only Point I agree with you 100%.
All in all though, it is an IMMENSELY complicated and interesting disease.
Zip, I give you an “A” for answering my post and an aattempt to aanswer my questions, however, I am sorry, I must give you an “F” for failing to really answer my questions, the way I see it. Like Trev, you only talk about factors working on/influencing/affecting/complicating GOUT, but you did NOT tell me/us the “why and what's”
trev said:
Hans- there is a wild card- it's a genetic lack in the enzyme dept! I'm sure Zip can clarify – I think there's info on here about it.
That's why only a few get gout- that could get it, on their SUA numbers.
The common inability to make Vit C is quoted as a possible factor.
Trev, I am sorry to say, that your answers don't hold up, if you don't mind. Everything you say is just supposition, theory, guess, etc. Even if they all were true, there is NO answer/explanation why “genetic lack in the enzyme dept!” and why “common inability to make Vit C”
Gilles said:
… I don't think he has ever been prescribed Colchicine, only Naproxen. …
Gilles, in case you and your dad don't know: Colchicine is an anti-inflammatory med specifically used for inflammation caused by a gout attack. Naproxen is a pain killer (Rx), Aleve is the non Rx counterpart. Neither one will combat gout, only its symptoms. The only ones to combat gout are: Allopurinol, Uloric, and Probenecid. (Anyone who knows/remembers the others, please, chime in.)
Gilles said:…helpful as possible, not bashing into his life and things. …
Sorry, Gilles, if you want to help your dad, you got to bash into his life to bash his gout!!!
Gilles said:
My fear is being cofirmed… He has been diagnosed with gout, an x-ray was done on his knee both with the ua level at the hospital back 3 weeks ago, along with the previous gout diagnose several years ago. …
Gilles, x-ray does NOT confirm gout.
Listen to each and every point Zip has told you. I confirm each and every one.
Gilles said:
… he took naproxen until yesterday, when he saw his doctor for the first time since. (The Dr. was on vacation) He put him on anti-inflammatory but I don't know what it is.
His u.a. level is around 10.
…The doctor sent him home with this medication, and told him after a few days he would be fine, and to stop taking the pills as soon as the pain goes away. Can a drug act this fast now? …
Gilles. your dad better spill the beans or the beans are going to spill hill him. Sorry for for the no-kid-glove treatment.
At a SUA level of 10 and his age, he must have collected oodles of uric acid crystals.
Naproxen only helps with reducing the pain but won't do doodle-lee-doo for the gout. Not knowing what anti-inflammatory meds he is on, no one call tell if it is the right one for gout (Colchicene) or not.
One big question: Has it been confirmed that he has GOUT??? If he has, then he needs a SUA reducing medication, at the least.
azasadny said:
…. with all of the foot pain …
Art, is my eyesight still ok? You are wearing Birkenstock's???
If “yes”, then I dare say that you have won “half' of the battle with/against Goliath “GOUT”. At least you don't have to fight the shoe and the socks/stockings industries (except you are making Birkenstock a bit richer than they are already.)
I have been wearing Birkenstock's for over 25 years and got mine, generally, in Germany at their “Sommerschluss Ausverkauf” (summer's end sell-out) for 1/4 of the regular price (at certain stores only.) I have worn “shoes” maybe 10 times over the last 14 years (retirement) except for, whatever you call them now, before, they were called “tennis shoes”, after the Japanese started their IWO JIMA marches and planted their flags (one of them) called: “Nike”, all over the world.
Regardless, if it weren't for Birkenstocks I would not have known how to survive the time between Dec. 2009 and now, October 2010.
trev said:
CJ- As you're lurking -and I'm up way too early, I'll put you out of yr miz-
Hans is fond of the term Lazy,Stubborn and Dumb! Don't blame me- He's one of yours,
Gee, Trev, if you keep this up, I may never die and, you sure as hell don't do “humanity” any favors. Several people got tired, waiting for Mother Nature to shorten my stay on this beautiful planet, and instead have kicked the bucket before I do. You added a second day to my life. However, at the same time you also gave me a LSD booster. I didn't have to explain. (I am not complaining.)
hansinnm said:
cjeezy said:
Post edited 1:46 pm – October 19, 2010 by cjeezy
Hi Hansinnm,
How long were you on AP before the rash started?
~3 weeks
Also, are u still taking AP now that the rash has cleared up?
NO. I am now on Uloric 40mg.
Also, I’m allergic to Penicillin. I thought I once read that I might have q problem with Probenecid because of that.
I wouldn't know about that. Either google Probenecid or ask Dr. Zip.
While you are at it, meaning reducing your LSD, google Penicillin, and draw your own conclusion.
cjeezy said:
Post edited 11:16 pm – October 18, 2010 by cjeezy
1)…. He said he’s never seen an AP rash in his 20 yrs of medicine but he’s 99.9% sure this isn’t from my AP. I’m still not sure what to think. Aside from the rash, I feel fine and don’t have a fever. He said to keep taking my AP and I should be much better in 2 days. The odd thing is this rash came on like a bat out of hell. I mean this spread across my whole body in literally a day to a day and a half.
2)…Can I try Probenecid …
1) An Eskimo who has never left his igloo probably has never seen a black person from Africa. My rash came out of the clear blue sky and it lasted close to 6 weeks. When it started I was covered from head to toe and I scratched my entire body bloody. I saw the dermatologist 3-4 times a week and almost killed him. He did his damnedest to get it under control. The last ointment (TRIAMCINOLONE ACETONIDE, USP,0.1%) did the job, however, I don't have the proof. After 6 weeks, the rash could have run its course.
2) Yes, you can take Probeneci, if your liver and kidneys are OK.
MyFootHurts said:
…
hansinnm – I'm already a bit touched, so I'm not worried about frequent (2 or 3 times a week) testing driving me any crazier.
….
Welcome to the Club of Crazy Gouties.
With your 3.5 @300mg, you ought to be on your way out of this hell hole. Don't give it a second thought to: LO or HI. Go by the real numbers you are reading.
MyFootHurts said:
The manual says that the lowest reading is 3.0, but that is clearly incorrect, as it has given me two 2.7s and one 2.5. When it said -LO- I immediately re-tested and got another -LO-….
If you keep on doing what you are doing, more than just your foot will hurt. Your pocket book for one, having to buy all those test strips, and your head later, because all that testing and getting those screwy figures are going to drive you crazy.
My advice: Test your SUA once a week (preferably always the same day) and make a chart; that way you'll know, if/when something is out of range.
I think that Zip has given you the answer to listen to and act upon.
I will have to drink more beer.
Yeah, for good measures, either a couple or three double or triple bocks or a pitcher of good Irish stout.
trev said:
…Aleve, though of minimal side effects compared to many pain killers, is aspirin based….
As Zip said: “I doubt that very much trev. They are chemically as different as night and day. Do you have a reference?”
Trev, your LSD is getting to you. (No offense!) Just google Apirin and Naproxen and see for yourself.
zip2play said:
...Somedoy BIG at the FDA was bought and paid for plain and simple. He should be uncovered, charged with bribery and fraud, and sent to prison for 20 years. Those at the drug company who did the bribery should be charged with runniing a criminal enterprise under the RICO statutues.
Somebody, Zip??? I don't think it's just somebody. I Think half or more of who make up the FDA are bought (or are still paid by their former employers. Don't forget, quite a few of the so-called FDA employees were pharma boys, and mostly of the upper echelon.
trev said:
…
Colcrys? Where are the regulators when you need them- holding out their greasy caps, often enough… Aspirin next?
trev, you ask the wrong question! When are they (but who is they?) going to throw the regulators (the bought FDA employees=government) into jail and the key away???
It ain't NEVER going to happen because the GOVERNMENT won't go voluntarily into jail.GoutPal said:
Whilst we are lining them up, please do not forget the uric-acid-raising-iron food industry
You are right, GoutPal. I only touched on Zip's remark, but since you mentioned about “lining them up”, let's not forget one of, if not, the most important money-making (literally) and wasting beyond human comprehension industry: the government of the United States of America and its brain child: the FDA which “protects” the industries from which the public at large wants and needs to be protected.
zip2play said:
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There are facts that must NOT be proven without infuriating powers like the medical profession, the dental profession, or GOD in order of importance.
You mind if I slightly change a couple of words in your comment, Zip?
Medical industry, dental industry, GODly industry!
Lyndak said:
…
And….dump the LP's. … the future will take care of itself.
Lynda
One more tree trunk to carry on your shoulder, Zip: When have you last listened to your 1000 LP's, 800 CD's, and a couple hundred of TAPES? Any you haven't for three years, forget about them. You most likely NEVER will again.
