[vlad115]

Hi zip2play,

It is kind of ironic but at this stage of the game gout is doing a sort of a good thing for me as it gave me motivation to excercise, which I currently do 3-4 times a week (just ran 3 miles yesterday) and I'm trying to watch what I eat. I do drink a little bit less, too, but still quite a bit on occasion, which happens every week or two. As far as antigout prevention after Oktoberfest I keep doing the following:

– take 2 black cherry pills in the morning and at night.

– take 1 celery seed in the morning and at night.

– drink a glass of milk every morning (somewhere on the web I dug out info that a glass of milk per day can decrease uric level by 0.5 over a course of a few months)

My San Francisco doctor tried to put me on allopurinol once he saw 7.4 measurement a couple of weeks ago. It is funny but different doctors are having different ranges. This particular one has 7.2 as the upper limit but my primary one has 8.2. Go figure. I know though that for myself 8.2 are twinges and tingles at the least. 7.4 seems to be OK. When I asked him about sideeffects he said that it is not good for kidneys, so I'm keeping that medicine on the backburner for now but I have a feeling that I'll get to it eventually.

What is your Uric Acid levels? 

One more not about Oktoberfest – I usually can't wait for trips to happen but that time I was kind of dreading it as I knew I would not be able not to drink beer there and hence an attack (especially after so much bad beer/gout reading on the web). So when I woke up after 6-liter day with no gout whatsoever I was the happiest man on Earth 🙂

6-liter is by far my record 🙂 Previous one might have been 4 and I did drink a 2-liter boot 3-4 years ago in 20 minutes just because I was thirsty when we went to german-austrian place here in San Francisco (when people started clapping around, at first I did not know they were watching me:)). But no more 2-liter boots in 20 minutes (maybe in an hour or so with alkaline drops :))

24 cans is really impressive, though!

Being a russian vodka is still a primary drink for me. 900 gramms or so is the record there 🙂 Incidentally I heard my friend (he is a doctor) saying that vodka is the least of 40%-alcohol-containing gout evils out there.

In any case the reason for this post was that I could not find almost any encouraging beer/gout article on the web.

As far as Orthodox (not just Russian) lent goes it is 48 days, 8 extra days being:

Lazarus Saturday, 1 day
Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem, 1 day
Passion Week, 6 days

It is not easy for me to get through those 48 days but it makes me to switch into a bit different life mode (being born and raised in Soviet Union I'm not very religious, I do it mostly for health reasons), when I don't have to worry/plan for hangovers and not afraid of overeating. Actually after 2-3 weeks I start feeling more energy.

[vlad115]

Hello everyone,

I have been reading this forum for few months now and this is my first post. Please excuse me for it being not so short one but I think my successful Munich's Octoberfest experience (albeit with quite a bit of preparation) might be encouraging for fellow gout sufferers. So here is the essay:)

Achievement:

I have been a gout sufferer for about 5 years and was able to go to Munich's Oktoberfest this year and have a time of my life without limiting myself in beer drinking and NOT having an attack. It took quite a bit of research and preparation but over a course of 5 days I was able to drink:
– 6 liters during the first day,
– 3 and a half – the second,
– about 2,5 the fourth (skipped 3rd altogether) and,
– about 3,5 liters during 5th and last day
without even getting twinges and tingles.

Background: 

Continue reading Surviving Octoberfest while being a gout sufferer