Good question and do you know when the war in Iraq will end or for
that matter when the next major shift in the climate of antartica
will happen.
My 6 year estimate is based on a pure guess and I really don't know
norcan anyone. The probelm you face with what I perscribe is that
your body, although relatively constant today, may, and will probably
change in 6 years.
Specifically, there are many of us who produce so much uric acid from
decomposition of out own body mass, that it doesn't matter what we
eat, the uric acid load on the kidney system is just greater than
that system can handle.
In other words, if you were on a diet of pure sugar and sufficient
protein, as pure protein with no DNA or RNA cellular material
included, (yes that kind of diet is available but it is very
expensive), sufficient lippid material, fats, all the required
minerals and vitamins, to maintain weight and sustain life-not a
very healthy diet, as I am sure you know, and in that diet you were
taking in absolutely no extraneous DNA or RNA, that is no external
source of Uric acid, your own body decomposition would flood your
system with uric acid and you will still get gout. In other words,
there are people for whom gout is just a fact of life. In fact you
and Arnold fit the mold for people that make uric acid without the
need to eat it in your diet and for you two in particular,
allopurinol is literally a life saver.
Secifically you both developed gout at a much younger age and both of
you were in good shape whtn the symptoms occurred. If you were 55 and
25 pounds over weight, like me when mine hit, then there is a good
probability that I could lose the weight, eat right and get back into
the zone where my kidneys were able to clear what I ate without help.
For those of us in my situation look at it this way, if you are over
weight it means that you are eating too much stuff. In that stuff
there is a lot of uric acid precursor. If your normal weight is 175
and you let it go to 200 you probably consume more than 100% more
food than you need to maintain your weight at 175. But, remember
this, your kidneys are sized for a man of 175 pounds and you are
eatinbg for two men that size. So, if a normal diet that will
maintain weight at 175 has 15% of the uric acid load that your
kidneys have to get rid of, your extra food will add another 30%
which is actually much higher because it is 30/85 of the total load
or 35%. In other words, us fat guys, can lose the weight, reduce the
total food we eat and reduce the load on out kidneys significantly.
Moreover, as OPC wants to do, you can also reduce the total purene
content of the intake which will reduce the total even further and
should allow you to go to something near a 5%-10% excess uric acid
intake above and beyond what your body puts out.
The problem with OPC and Arnold is that they are not over weight and
their uric acid output, as a percentage of total weight, is a lot
higher than most of us.
Lets examine these two en's histories for similarities and there is
an important message in there that we need to understand.
Both men claim, and I see no reason to doubt it, that they are
physically very active. Lots of exercize and in good shape.
OK, what does that mean. Well, no pain and no gain and it means that
they are working their muscles, probably over time and what does that
do. Exercize breaks down muscle tissue. It is how the system works.
When you break down muscle tissue it gets digested by your body and
voila--extra uric acid load on the system. You could just stop
ecercizing, get a cot in a room and lie there-like you probably do in
the middle of a really bad attack, and never move your muscles, hold
them perfectly still and you could reduce your uric acid output.
There are some speculations in the literature that this is probably
one of the ways gout patients actually get better because the illness
immobilizes them to the point that their life slows down, so does the
uric acid production and they get better.
You have to ask yourself if that is the kind of life you want to
live. If this were 1775 and you were Benjamin Franklin, that would be
your only alternative but it isn't that time and we do have
allopurinol now and especially for young, and other wise healthy
people, who develop gout, the prognosis for getting better with diet
only is almost completely hopeless. For us older fatties, we could,
in all probability, get to where we do not need the allo but I for
one don't want to go through the pain I know I would suffer if I fail
in my quest.
I haven't cried on shoulders here about how bad mine was but I
retired and started a new business that I had always wanted to do
which was professional photography. I had a good start in the wedding
photography business and had many weddings scheduled when I was
struck down with gout.
MMMm, running after a bride with a camera and limping all the way is
just not possible and I ended up having to get a photographer friend
to take over the business for me since I ended up on a six month
hiatus from life as I used to know it.
Since allopurinol I have regained my old life, restarted my
photographic aspirations and I am enjoying my second career
immensely. If your interested look at www.smdsphotography.com and
you'll see some pretty ladies as they go through the ceremonial
process. I love the work because the young ladies are the age of my
daughters and it is just very rewarding. I do it because I love it,
not because I need the money I get from it, and in fact, I price my
work about 1/3 below market because I want the business but don't
need to milk the dollars.
I bring this up, not because I am pushing my work, but because I am
stating my passion and that passion was brutally and completely taken
away from me by the gout monster. Can you imagine trying to cover a
big wedding with a major attack. I mean when a trip to the bathroom
is a major undertaking, trying to remember which exposure to use and
how to balance the light and when to shoot what and where to be, was
just an impossible situation.
Allpurinol has restored my dignity, my faith in myself and the
measure of happiness and self worth that has come wtih it is hard to
measure.
What I am going to say next may shock some of you but I would gladly
trade 15 years of life as I can now live it for 25 years of agony
with gout. If I knew that allo was going to shorten my life by 10
years out of 25, I would still chose to live it as the person I
really am rather than the person that I become when I am wracked with
pain, left completely immobile and afraid to eat almost anything.
Reality however, is that allo does not statistically shorten life and
the longevity data indicate that it will actually do the reverse, it
will lengthen your life because it ends up helping and actually
repairing your circulatory system. Allopurinol is reqularly
perscribed now in major heart surgeries because it improves your
ability to heal.
Enough... I'm tired of fighting with peop-lw who want to live with
their poain and by damn each and every one of you has an inalieable
right to keep that pain for as long as you can.
Yes, indeed, I believe in life, liberty and the persuit of pain and
long live the diet-only crusaders, may they limp long and find
comfortable pillows on which to rest their feet. Meanwhile, I'll be
shooting my cameras.