Today’s third, and final, short gout question is home cure for gout.
Strange that you don’t get many people looking for “home heart surgery” or “home laser eye treatment”. There’s something about gout that makes us want to cure it at home.
Let’s face it, if your standard of gout medical care is the same as that described in some messages I get from disgruntled gout patients, then I don’t blame you.
But, you know, you should never look for a home cure for gout. Any gout cure, whether medication or herbal remedy, must consist of two entirely different, separate, distinct parts.
2 cures.
Not ONE cure for gout.
Two.
I have never seen any so-called home cure for gout that makes this distinction. The marketing men are happy to persuade you that all your troubles will be over, but never tell you why. Or how.
This is why you need two cures:
- Something to lower uric acid
- Something to relieve pain
For the first one, you can start with my previous post, natural uricosuric agent.
For the second, take your pick from herbal pain relief, natural pain relief, natural anti-inflammatory etc.
Just don’t confuse the two.
- Lower uric acid to below 6mg/dL and keep it there – the only way to get rid of gout.
- Take pain relief, usually anti-inflammatory, as you need it – may take a few months.
That is true whether you are looking for a gout cure at home, at your doctors, at hospital, or wherever you are.
That should tell you where to start looking for a home cure for gout. If it doesn’t, see the Gout Questions page for the quickest way to find out more information.
Leave Home Cure For Gout to browse Natural Gout Cures that Lower Uric Acid
My husband has had several bouts of gout. IT has been in his feet and his knees. He takes allopurinol faithfully everyday and it works for his feet, but it doesn’t work on his knees. He has taken naproxen and Indocin. It doesn’t work for him. Is there anything else that might work better for him? Thank you, Kim
Knees are often the site of Psuedo Gout, caused by high Calcium levels rather than Serum Uric Acid.
Just as painful, I gather, and I have heard of missed diagnoses on the assumption that its ordinary gout , by default.
Kim,
I just got over my first attack of gout. Dreadful experience to say the least. I couldnt figure out why I would get it, inasmuch as I’m a vegetarian.
After doing some web based searching, I think I have found a culprit. High fructose corn syrup. I drank at least two soads a day, plus up to 6 teaspoosn of artificial coffee creamer. You may want to research this for yourself.
Best of luck
Randy
Thanks for the tip, it is the only decent answer to gout pain and swelling. All the other posts are just jabber and talk of drugs, which apparently don’t help. So from what I gather it is water to drink and corn syrup to avoid. My husband is a good eater and does consume, large amounts of corn syrup, in Ketchup, chocolate syrup, so called ice cream, fruit jellies, caramels etc. Thanks again and please to people to add their advice.
my urice acid level in blood is 9.8, plz suggest me how to reduce it
Despite the comment above about ‘drugs jabber’, that route (Allopurinol) via your Dr. would be the first port of call with a such a high UA level.
You don’t say if you get attacks of gout yet, but the answer is probably Yes!
Either way, people here would advise that starting such treatment could start or increase attacks and finding the right home cure could take some time and a few attacks to test out.
That would seem risky in your situation- I’ve never identified a dietary protocol that I would rely on
totally.
Avoiding seafoods and any much beer/sprits is a good start point though.
There’s loads of useful advice and comment here- but one thing stands out- and that is it’s a very personalized affliction !
It is very personalized, but it is also very easy.
With no other information, the simple answer is:
Start taking daily allopurinol at 100mg per day. Check for negative reactions, and if none then increase dosage at two weekly intervals until blood uric acid is between 4 and 6 mg/dL. Repeat uric acid tests every 3 months. Once there have been no gout attacks for 6 months, consider relaxing the dose to maintain 5.5 to 6.5 mg/dL. Never stop taking the allopurinol. Never stop 3 monthly uric acid tests.
Of course, with other information (chiefly reluctance to rely on pills – a fact not a judgment call) we can, and will, make it as complicated, and interesting, as we can.
I must qualify my earlier reply on what to avoid -in that I’m a ‘Fishhead’ (or demi-veg) and only extremely rarely go near even a square of chicken in a curry if eating out with friends. [& also not a lot of fish really-always skinless and childs portion- if you have the nerve to face down the skinflint stares 😉 ]
Red meat- not for over 20 yrs.
[So, that’s why shellfish has such an impact on me, I reckon.]
But for this- I would be in deep doo by now in the UA stakes!
It’s still high, over 7- but only one attack in a year since stopping Thiazide diuretic,- and that triggered by 4+ pints of beer, after a 4 week layoff.
[So, that’s why beer has such an impact on me, I reckon.] Scowl…
To summarise- my ‘standing threshold’ for purine intake is relatively low- but the impact of the’wrong ones’ is high.
To lower uric acid levels naturally you should do away with foods that are high in purines. Those foods include red meat, legumes, poultry, shellfish, and alcohol. You should eat a diet that includes lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables each day to help uric acid levels become stable. Fruits with vitamin C are very beneficial. You will need to drink a great deal of water every day to help flush your system. Drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day. Aiming for 12 glasses of water daily would be most helpful .
But that only makes sense if you can show that raised uric acid levels are caused by a high purine diet.
What about kidney problems, genes, diuretic and other gout inducing drugs, surgery and other trauma, fasting, obesity? Making your diet boring is not going to fix any of them.
Otherwise good dietary advice, but nothing particularly helpful for gout sufferers, except for the water.
A friend of my husbands a truck driver gets now and again very serious bouts of gout that bad that he can’t put on his safety boots so therefore can not go to work on those days ,being myself a keen tea drinker and a gardener who is continually battling with Bishops weed AKA gout weed , I wondered if you could tell me if there really is any benefit to the teas and poultices alluded to in the “modern herbal” as I would love it if there was an actual worth while benefit from the evil spreading weed
Goutweed is so named as it was used as an early cure for gout. A 2007 study, “The polyacetylene falcarindiol with COX-1 activity isolated from Aegopodium podagraria L” shows that an anti-inflammatory compound (COX-1 inhibitor) can be extracted from this weed – especially the flowers. I doubt that there is sufficient active material in any “modern herbal remedy”, and even if there was, it would still have the terrible side-effects associated with NSAIDs and other modern COX-1 inhibitors.
Your friends husband should join the gout forum – a much more certain way of finding effective gout cures.
I had a quick check round on this and two things that stood out were that the Latin name is derived from Goats Foot due to the leaf shape -and it is diuretic in action.
This would make one wary using for gout, other than as a poultice.
It has been used topically & as a salad -with the young leaves being used.
Horses and Deer avoid it however, though other farm animals don’t.
While there may be some valid reason that it could help in gout if properly used- in a serious case ,where work is regularly lost, this route would never come before conventional medicine -as that is well proven and a whole load safer.
What are the terrible side effects of NSAID’s such as Indomethacin mentioned in your July 14 response?
From my Indomethacin page:
The first part applies to all COX-1 inhibitors – they suppress pain, but they also suppress the hormones that protect the stomach linings. This happens via the bloodstream, so COX-1 inhibitors absorbed through gels and ointments are just as risky as those taken orally.
For short term use, you might be OK, but your main focus must be on lowering uric acid below 6mg/dL.
Here are just a few of the side affects of Indomethacin Headache, heartburn, loss of appetite, lightheadedness, dizziness, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, nervousness, vision changes, ringing in ears/loss of hearing just to name a few. There is also the possability of an allergic reaction as well. For arthritis sufferers it may take up to four weeks before the full effects of this medicine are noted. For best results, this must be taken regularly, as directed by your doctor.
Here is the proper list of possible side effects of indomethacin (indocin / indometacin), and other information.
I cannot understand why it would take 4 weeks to be effective – that just sounds like scaremongering or Yet Another Internet Myth. Besides, are you talking osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, or one of the crystal arrthropathies?
There is every indication that it brings very quick relief to gout sufferers, but then again it is not what I would class as a “home cure for gout” – the topic of this article.
Getting back to home remedies, there are those who believe that gout relief is hiding in the kitchen, but you need to buy a $50 report to find it. What a load of marketing claptrap – exactly the type of rubbish that I refer to in my article. (“The marketing men are happy to persuade you that all your troubles will be over, but never tell you why. Or how.”)
Do us all a favor, Rick and give us some real evidence that justifies your $50 report over a tried and tested pain relief medication like indomethacin.
For everybody else, we keep our “secrets” in the open. The forum is full of the joys of a kitchen home cure for gout. I have summarized Black Bean Broth on the main site, and you can use the search box below to find several topics in the gout forum. It might work for you, it might not, but we do not charge $50 for the privilege.
Whenever money raises its ugly head- my attenna get activated.
Both on the WWW, Politics [which defines medicine protocols] and with Big Pharma there are vested interests lurking- who will always be looking for the next way to get/stay ahead of the game.
The beauty of sites like this one is that people are relating real experiences with illness, prescription drugs, home treatments and traditional remedies.
They all mesh well, if far from perfect, as they are sourced in people genuinely trying to help each other at a personal level.
This is often missing, in a substantial way, in modern society.
My opinion on ‘home cures’ issue is that thay can be useful, but may take as long to implement as the condition takes to establish -and, even then , be much less [relatively] instantly effective than medical intervention.
However, this route is also the cheapest and safest in terms of side effects -but not the least painful.
This is true, in many issues, in life.
Control is still, importantly, in the hands of the sufferer , though.
Determining the SUA one is ‘working into’ for diagnosis /treatment is fundamental however and above a certain level of joint damage/attack pain- drugs have to be used & tolerated, as best one can, to resist serious health outcomes developing.
Absolutely, trev.
I have no issue with people earning a living but my maxim is to give more value than the cost to the customer.
In my own case there is no product, but the value of the message has to be worth more than the cost (in time and brain effort) of reading it. Similarly, the UASure uric acid testing device has my endorsement – in an ideal world testing through ones health provider should be enough, but where this does not happen, knowing your uric acid number is too important to be ignored.
If someone can produce something that lowers uric acid, they deserve to be paid for it. In that case, the product should be clearly described and sold with a guarantee. The guarantee needs to be “your uric acid level reduced below 6mg/dL within 3 months or your money back” – anything less is completely worthless. (I might be persuaded by 6 months but the below 6mg/dL is sacrosanct)
For a professional marketer there is also a perfectly valid reason to upsell pain relief, as it is a well known medical fact that lowering uric acid has a risk of causing gout flares until all old uric acid crystals are dissolved. The guarantee here is that it fixes your pain within 24 hours or your money back. Another product worth paying for.
There is a gray area on pain relief that some products may help reduce inflammation without giving the immediate gout flare fix. As long as such products are sold honestly, and the customer gets more benefit than they cost (and is not misled), then they are perfectly valid.
If these points are not clearly made, and guarantees clearly given, then the two products are NOT home cures for gout – they are poor excuses for ripping off gout sufferers. No amount of pointing out small deficiencies in proven medications will make this right.
Sgreed GP- Anecdotal evidence is not a guarantee for future success!
Also, there is the problem that under new legislation any food that produces a medical result will have to be marketed/licensed as a drug. [Pending Codex Alimentarius, EU moves etc]
So, in some ways that is enough to say that some foods can be helpful in gout, but not capable of a ‘surefire’ result, will escape censure by Nanny State.
Send the hyperactive legislators home !
This discussion is now closed.
I have replaced it with separate discussions for natural pain relief (Gout Home Remedies Debate) and natural uric acid lowering. I have also introduced a specific discussion for Black Bean Broth as a natural remedy for gout.