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Utubelite – Good input – thanks. I've been worrying about a possible gout attack in the early days of taking Allopurinol and didn't have a clue as to when I could assume the danger had passed. In fact, my doc gave me a prescription for prednisone 5 mg tabs just in case the A. did trigger a gout attack and so I've been on “alert” but fortunately, no attacks yet so maybe I'm out the woods for now.
Despite the good numbers, I don't like the idea of being on a daily dose of anything for the rest of my life. Maybe I should just admit I'm like many others in the world and don't fret about it, but I will at least talk to my doc about reducing the dosage (maybe cut the 300 mg pills in half) in a few months. I do have a weight loss goal of 13 lbs so I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing until that goal is met.
I've got the full paper plus another good one too that looks interesting, but somewhat over my head in technicalities (I'm a mathematician, not a biologist or chemist). My girlfriend works at a university and students, faculty, and staff can download most all papers for free, which is how I got them. Either post your email here or send it to me at luv_2_make_eagles at yahoo dot com and I'll send both of them to you.
Yes, by all means, if you have some ideas about a spreadsheet then share it with us. Like I said, I started one and put in the date, UA reading, the lot number of the test strip, time of day, etc., and will probably add weight and % body fat when I do my next reading in about a week.
Weight control. What specifically is the goal here – something measurable such as percent body fat, e.g., <20% body fat?
Iron – I found an article called Effects of Acute Exercise on the Levels of Iron, Magnesium, and Uric Acid in Liver and Spleen Tissues, Biological Trace Element Research, Vol. 91, 2003 that says “serum ferritin… levels were lower than those of sendentary subjects. Also, iron stores of professional sportsmen at the end of their seasons were found to be decreased compared to the levels at the beginning of the season.” I mention this because in my original post, I stated the correlation between my gout attacks and a shift from an active life style to a sendentary one. Any thoughts?
Spreadsheets. Yes, I use Excel all the time and did start putting my UA data in a worksheet. Can you think of anything else that would be worth tracking? I suppose weight and % body fat (I've got Tanita scales that measure % body fat) would be useful. Anything else? Do you have a special spreadsheet that would be useful?
First data from UASure. For over a week now I've been planning to improve my diet before checking my UA. However, I have made no progress (largely because of the holiday parties, etc.) and so I used the unit for the first time tonight (although I did a trial run on the test solution I ordered last week which worked). First I played golf today, then drank a lot of dark beer, ate pizza and hot wings, and finally measured the UA about 3 or 4 hrs after all this consumption, and got a reading of 6.8 mg/dL. I next looked at 10 years of medical records – blood tests taken once per yr – and all UA levels were between 6 and 7, so todays reading, after the over indulging, was still within my 10 yr historic range (I've had 4 gout attacks during this time period, three of which occurred when I was on travel and in a sedentary lifestyle as discussed above).
Anyway, should I take the UA measurement in the morning – would that be “better”? Do you think if I could stick to a low purine diet then it would come down? What is a target threshold to get below for zero attacks?
Thanks for the input regarding shipping methods – I see the shipping method that I will use in the future. I think what happened is this: after two failed attempts at ordering (Paypal and American Express CC did not work when trying to order on-line), by the time I finally got MasterCard to work I was thrilled and just hit buttons to make it go through before it aborted on me as it did in the previous two attempts.
Anyway, I got the unit yesterday and read the manual twice. Then I performed the monitor checker test by inserting th eMonitor Checker (R1), got a beep and then the smiling face, but did not get the confirmation Code (4 digit number) until after I pulled the Checker strip out from the unit. I assumed I would gt the 4-digit code while the checker strip was still inserted, so this leads me to ask this question: when I do the “real” blood test, does the result display on the LCD screen while the UASure Blood Uric Acid Test Strip is inserted, or do I have to pull it out first before the result is displayed?
Sorry for asking “little” things I could learn by trial and error but the strips are rather limited (and expensive) so I don't want to waste them unnecessarily. Thanks!
Just got my bill from Artic Medical and was shocked at the UPS shipping charge of 55 British pounds = $91.50 USD
. I order the UAShure test test kit with two extra sets of 25 strips, lancets, and some test fluid, all for 100.54 pounds, so I'm pissed that shipping was more than 50% of the cost of the items I bought. Did I err in picking UPS as the shipping method? thanksThanks for the three replies and link to Artic Medical. I ordered the UASure home test kit with extra test strips and other items this evening. I could not get Pay Pal or American Express CC to work with the on-line order, but on the 3rd attempt using MasterCard all went smoothly. I will post more information when I get the unit.
Agreed, its a bit pricy but worth it if I can get a handle on my UA levels, etc. I have spent a lot more money on other things that have a lot less utility to me so hopefully I will look back one day and say this was a good purchase decision.
