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Keith,
I appreciate your thoughtful post. I tested my UA today, at the same time as yesterday, and it was 6.9 mg/dl, versus yesterday’s 4.8. I am aware that my MD should have started me on 100 mg allopurinol not 300 mg.
I bought the meter because I am committed to getting my UA below 5 mg/dl. It just might take a while before I figure out the meter and my body.
Thanks for this site and all the work you do for us.
Moises
I live in New York City and bought my UAsure from Arctic Medical in England. It arrived a couple of days ago but I used it this morning for the first time.
I have a lot of experience testing my blood because I am a diabetic, so I measure blood glucose numerous times each day.
I cannot get a large drop of blood without squeezing the finger. I tried for more than half an hour before giving up. My fingers are all quite sore right now.
My reading was 4.8 mg/dl, today December 2. I suspect that that is way lower than my actual value.
I started allopurinol 300 mg on November 17. On November 28 my SUA lab test value was 6.4.
I took my last allopurinol November 30. I stopped taking it because I could not tolerate the gut discomfort it caused.
Since I stopped the allopurinol, I expected, if anything, my SUA to be higher than 6.4. Instead it was lower (4.8).
Maybe 4.8 is an accurate reading or maybe I need to find a way to get blood without squeezing my finger.
For completely other reasons, I just purchased a (very expensive) Genteel Lancing Instrument. It is supposed to provide painless lancing. It has not yet arrived. But I am not sure if it would be compatible with UAsure because I believe it does use a vacuum to draw blood. It seems to me that a vacuum would have similar drawbacks to squeezing the finger.
It’s always tough to determine cause and effect, expecially when n=1.
But here is my experience so far:
I bought an alcohol-based papaya leaf extract (PLE) that was well-reviewed on amazon.com.I started taking 10 drops in a cup of water before bed, on Tuesday night. This is much lower than the typical dose. In hindsight, I am very glad that I started so conservatively.
Soon I noticed more digestive problems than usually experience: digestive cramping, disturbed sleep, and more frequent bowel movements. On Sunday, after 5 nights of taking the PLE, I decided to stop.
Now I will see if my gut problems resolve.
It’s always possible that the PLE was killing pathological microbes and that is why I was in digestive discomfort.
I still have my opened bottle of allopurinol. I have no idea if it will produce digestive side effects. I am hoping not.
Keith,
That’s some great stuff. Thank you for posting.
It would be pretty easy for me to find some leaf extract, which seems to be widely available on the web, and then start testing my own uric acid. Sounds like a better strategy than the one my doc has given me. He prescribed me 300 mg allopurinol to start (but I haven’t taken any yet). Unless I try to split pills, it seems like it would be a lot easy to modulate the dose more finely with the papaya extract. On the other hand, the papaya extract might have all kinds of other undesired effects. From amazon.com’s reviews, it appears as if many chemo patients take it to boost their platelet count.
