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I think bee venom falls iinto the “counterirritant” treatment school of “medicine.” It works pretty much like this:
If your left foot is KILLING you, you take a hammer and smash it onto your RIGHT foot as hard as possible. Your LEFT foot will stop hurting.
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A less startling use would be to put on a linament for a backache. The more the linament BURNS the less will be the notice of the backache.
Colchicine is a truly remarkable drug and in fact the?longest tested drug in the history of makind.
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BUT it is for the control of the pain of a gout attack and ultimately stopping the attack. It is NOT good long term control of the CAUSE of the gout which is high uric acid which precipitates into joints.
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Taking Colchine as the sole agent for gout control is similar to a patient who despises surgery and instead choosed to use demerol, or oxycodone to control the pain?of a brain tumor or an appendicitis. Yes the pain will stop but the disease will likely kill the person.
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“What really works from experience?”
DAILY ALLOPURINOL!
(and keep the colchicine for emergencies.)
In the U.S. ALL foods sold that are made with grains MUST be supplented with iron.?That's EVERY bag of rice, every piece of bread, and every bag of pasta.
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For men it is iron poisoning, plain and simple. European studies have convincingly linked excess serum?ferritin with heart disease.
Hi Don,
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Of course, Crohn's is a disease involving an improper immune attack against many parts of the body. It most manifests as severe and lifelong colitis/diahrrhea.? You have a regimen in place that moderates the severity of the disease but now you have a complicating factor, gout. (Personally I feel these arthritises are more related than most credit them .)
So, very pragmatically, you need to see which agent both lowers your serum uric acid below 6.0 consistently without falring up your Crohn's Disease. Since you say that cochicine, allopurinol, and indomethacin are off the table you need to try the others. They are Uloric, probenecid, and sulfinpyrazone in the U.S. and benzbromarone in some other countries. Of these only Uloric is very expensive.
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I think these agents should be tried one by one, perhaps a month each, to determine both efficacy and tolerability. I'll bet one of them will be okay?I HOPE one will be.
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I also suspect that once uric acid is controlled, you will be somewhat less bothered by some of the gazillions of manifestations of Crohn's.
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edit: Let me make an off-the-wall suggestion and recommendation. Why not try drinking a glass of KEFIR every day for a month. It is a very complex probiotic that will establish a different flora in your intestines. It MIGHT ease your Crohn's?it CURED my irritable bowel syndrome.
Worth a try, nothing to lose,?and it is QUITE delicious. (Since the milk lactose is all pre-digested by the little buggies, lactose intolerance is not a factor.)
Of course what you did was to find a dose of a drug that worked and proceed to lower the dosage to the point that it didn't work.
I have a friend who has hypertension and high cholesterol and she takes her BP and statin meds, goes to the doctor who proclaims her NORMAL so she gives away her pills. Next year she goes back and has hypertension and high cholesterol again?and the process is repeated. The upside is that I get her tossed off ?Lipitor and Cozaar.
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I cannot comment on the joint cracking but I CAN say that you need to be on allopurinol, likely 300 mg./day, for the rest of your life. Why not just accept the fact? Beware? baking soda if you need a diuretic?it's a LOT of sodium.
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On diuretics: if you MUST take them, lasix (furosemide) is a LOT better for gouties than the thiazides.
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Sorry about the Meniere's?it sucks. I have screeching tinnitus bad enough (had both ears operated on for otosclerosis long ago) but I don't know what I'd do with constant vertigo. Does the betahistine work?
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Good luck and get back on 300 mg. allopurinol ASAP.
mers,
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The never-never land of not being sure is tough.
Watch and wait for a telltale attack. There's little else you can do.
You don't want to treat a disease you don't have.
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Next doctor's visit make sure you have your serum uric acid tested.
I hope eventually uricase is the way to go, but right now it's EXTREMELY expensive, the FDA hates it, and insurance comapnies are quick to grab onto any straw that will allow them to avoid payment.
You can pray to me in this case.
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If you can walk, you might as well go out with your friends and enjoy a bender…why stay home and suffer?
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When you get back?home make sure you have colchicine handy…and plan on regualr allopurinol forever.
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A couple drugs let us live real lives.
I am fond of very high doses of cochicine… (they weren't always considered high, just since? the Cochrys nonsense) so if I were sure an attack was imminent, I would not hesitate to take 4 colchicine (2 mg.)?over 3 hours.
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Why not start treatment with allopurinol?
If I had a dime for every “cure” for arthritis over the centuries, I'd be able to buy a new car.
You'd think any disease that was cured on a weekly basis would have had SOMETHING of?a r3easonable treatment ?come up if? only accidentally…but NO!
Imagine sitting in an abandoned uranium mine, festooned with coppper bracelets, eating pounds of supplements washed down with quarts of cider vinegar…and STILL aching.
I tried glucosamine-chondroitin (1500-1200 mg./day) for nearly a year to ameliorate spinal arthritis, knee and shoulder pain.
PURE HOKUM. From my personal experieince, the stuff is just another scam in an? endlessly?long line of arthritis scams.
A trip to Lourdes would likely work better.
There are two very serious illnesses that cause dark urine. The first is hepatitis or any other itis that shuts down the liver. The destroyed red blood cells that are normally made into bile in the liver stay in the blood and spill over into the kidneys. A component, bilirubin, spills over into the urine and turns it brown, even coffee colored. This is jaundice and is often accompanied by intense itching.
Similar happens when muscle cells are destroyed either by trauma or by a drug reaction. This is called rhabdomyolysis.
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Now if what you are decribing is a deep yellow bordering on orange, then not to worry, it's probably dehydration. A salty meal and lots of water?should straighten you out.
The only problem I have with the image is that for me the devil seemed like he was chewing his way OUT. There is the AWFUL feeling with gout that the pain is deep within.
It's uniquely horrible. Hard to believe that a pain in one's foot can almost make one gag.
I think maybe the correllation is more likely with TEMPERATURES in MI.
Cold feet means increased urate precipitation.
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Alas, I cannot remember what I weighed when gout last hammered me.
I too echo the assertion that diet has very little to do with gout or it's control.
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Get on allopurinol and TAKE it, ?monitor your uric acid regularly, and have a supply of colchicine when and if you have an attack, and pretty much eat what you wish.
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Once you have gout you will NEVER be cured, but treatment is REALLY effective.
I tried tramadol ONCE, I forget for what. It is just too, too much…?unless one is spending the day in bed.
Indomethacin makes me dizzy so I can just imagine the combo.
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As everyone knows I am?most fond of high dose colchicine to stop a gout attack and of course allopurinol to keep it away forever.
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Gary, are “San Juan Islands” off the coast of Puerto Rico?
Joe,
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Sorry you got a bunch of quacks who manhandled you all those years.
I wouldn't mix Naproxyn and Advil but either could be added to allopurinol and colchicine. I would choose the Naproxyn because it is a lot easier on MY stomach. But your tolerace and results might be different so choose the one you like better.
Like trev said, 2 colchicine is not much to stem an attack once it has gotten hold…it?MIGHT work at the first twinge of an attack 4 would be better (over 3 hours.) I think the absolute?minimum for an established attack is 6 pills over 5 hours.
How much allopurinol (I think 300 is best)…what is your serum uric acid?
Oh GOD?
I'm so sorry to hear this.
Of course we are all dying for more info (thank you Keith's daughter.)
(Fall? Auto accident? Surgery? Traction?)
I?cracked a lumbar process back in '73 and I hope yours is no worse than that.
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Write when you can.
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Atheist prayers go with you.
I think that doctors know too little about gout but what they know about pseudogout is far less. I wish I could add more but I cannot.
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There seems to no good treatment other than pain relief.
forya,
I have experience with back degeration at L5-S1, L4-L5 (discs are crushed and?long gone)?with myself and far higher up the lumbar spine with friends. I have observed for decades the effects of surgery on others. For myself I decided NO.
My advice is DO NOT HAVE MULTIPLE FUSIONS because the benefit to risk ratio seem to me less than one, a great deal less.
I know a woman who has had over a dozen surgeries beginning in her 20's who is in worse pain in her 50's than when she started.
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A close friend has had multiple fusions 2 years ago and is now dealing with loose pedicles and a life of barbiturates and muscle relaxants?and pain. Once they fill you with stainless steel there's no going back.
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Consider the back pain SEPARATE from gout, whether it is or isn't. Control your uric acid and learn what your back will and will not tolerate. For a bad back there is no magic bullet, only doctors who THINK they can help, while amassing fortunes for themselves.
If you wait 5 years and decide you want back surgery, at least that is enough time to be an informed patient.
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You have the sympathy of a person who has had a ruined back for 35 years and gout for 20.
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NEVER take another thiazide.
Needle puncture and suction didn't work, all I got was blood,?but it is getting on my nerves so I nibble at it. Eventually I will chomp down hard and open it up.
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I guess even when controlling uric acid there is little that can be done about one's hands being a lot cooler than the rest of the body.
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At least it's completely painless.
I remain skeptical about mega-vitamin cures in general and?Vitamin C cures in particular having been exposed to so many lies and half truths in the last 40 years.
Since it is almost impossible to find a disease that ISN'T claimed to be cured by Vitamin C (yes even cancer,) and that almost all diseases are actually scurvy in disguise, ?but yet there is NO evidence ever presented, only ffluff articles with lots of mights, maybes, and seems.
If one is to claim that Vitamin C lowers serum uric acid to any appreciable degree it is simple to prove?but yet the proof is not given.
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And no, Linus Pauling lied?Vitamin C does NOT cure the common cold. I ate tons of it to prove that to myself.
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But as my doctor was fond of saying when anyone mentioned vitamins:
“Well,?they can't hurt.”
?Usually that's true?but a pain in the wallet hurts a little bit too.
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?Over?the years I have probably downed more bottlefuls of Vitamin C than anyone here, and prbably more than 99.5% of the world's population. Over two decades, I took a gram a day and when I felt a cold coming I downed 6 grams per day. Guess what, during that time I developed Gout.
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So Bob, I hope you continue to have good results with Vitamin C, a potent acidifier, but when it stops working know there is always allopurinol there for you.
thefrog,
I was perusing some of Keith's excellent pictures and recall two showing rather large tophi lodged in the spine right where spinal nerves exit. The effect whould be simialr to a bulging disc.
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So perhaps a rapid fall in serum urate is causing issues with something similar in your back.
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You won't find much in the literature but a renouwned doctor has shown good results in combatting back?pain with colchine inhjections in to the spine.
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I do not doubt that the two certainly can be related.
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A test might be to stop the Uloric for a couple weeks (risky) and see what happens with your back.
