few q's
hi all,
Does anyone on here have a relatively constant attack?
I havent felt completely free for about 3 months now,
and often am limping around. I take 75mg diclofenac
(under the arthrotec brand) twice a day most of the
time, but I dont want to start allo because i have
read (on here, i think) that the allo CAN cause gout
to flare up worse.
So what do i do when there isnt a gap between attacks
in which to start on the allo?
daz
You have reached the stage most of us reach before we finally give in
and start on allo.
The fact is that once you start your allo you will have many many
more attacks but they will be an order of magnitude less painful and
much more easily controlled than the attacks that are gripping you
now.
In the stage of gout that you now find yourself you are running three
major and totally life altering dangers.
1. You are seriously deteriorating the bone mass of the area that is
under attack. You can, and if left untreated, you certainly will,
cripple yourself, or at a minimum, make it so that you will never
again be able to use the joint that is being attacked in a normal
way.
2. You cannot continue in your normal routine and thus, because of
your obvious immobility, you will lose your own self confidence to
continue in your job and you will simultaneously lose other people's
confidence that you can continue in your job because the fact will be
that you will be unable to perform at the level you did before gout.
3. Because of the pain and because of feelilng sorry for yourself-
with a relative amount of justification I might add-you will and
probably already have begin to be a different person to those you
love and trust. You will become a burden, a problem, someone who
needs care and attention and over time you will be avoided and looked
at as the crippled person.
The GP of today has this information in his medical book that tells
them what you wrote.
It is absolute BS.
Your attacks will not be as bad as they are now and they will
qauickly dimminish to a very manageable level. Within 3 months you
will wonder what the fuss was about and in 6 months you will be
really irritated when you have a small atack because it will have
been a while since you had one. In nine months it will be hard to
remember what an attack feels like and yet, you will still tremble in
fear that an attack might still get you. In the second year on allo
you will be attack free and in the third year you wills start to
forget, occationallly to take your allo.
Forget for a week and your toes will remind you that you better not
keep forgetting.
Start your allopurinol as soon as you can get the medication and
start on 300 mg a day right away. Your GP will try to start you
gradually but the dosage they usually start you on, 100 mg a day, is
not enough to block all the uric acid formation and you will continue
to get bad attacks. Start 300 mg of allo, (some Rumatologists
actually will start on even higher doses for the beginning patient
and then taper down to 300 a day after three months.)
As to your current pain-if you are really afraid of the pain that
allo might cause you, you can start a regime of oral cortizone-I
forget the name of it-perhapos someone here will remember and help
out-and that will allow you to get past the first four weeks of allo
and that 3-4 week start should be enough to get you almost 90% well.
The allo will have kicked in by then and you will be removing your
old uric acid in proportion to how much water you drink.
Yes indeed, start the water and keep it going and get used to the
frequent trips to the restroom. You need the water to flush that old
uric acid out and you need allo to stop the production of more uric
acid.
Start the Allo anyway, if you've felt lousy for 3 months how much
worse can you get. Be very careful of the Diclofenac, it caused me
to have bad liver enzyme results in my blood work.
Thank you so much for that /those q's and especially the answer. They
were my q's also. I joined here a week ago and have been reading. I've
been in constant misery for two years, finally got a diagnosis last week
after a new blood test revealed a Uric acid of 9.4 and I mentioned the
gritty powdery things on my ears. Given the allo prescription and told
not to start it for 2 weeks, until the arthrotec got the inflammation
down. I've been reading that allo only prevents further u. a.
production, so I was wondering why to wait two weeks to start it, but
rheumy said it would cause more pain if I started the allo right away.
It didn't make sense with the literature I was reading on the internet.
How much more pain could I be in anyway!
All the bad things I already have, I was mis-diagnosed with lupus and
all this time I've been becoming more and more a cripple. I use a wheel
chair when I leave home and a walker in the house. I'm in constant pain,
take tons of vicodin, and am a burden on my family. I can barely take a
shower, it's such an agony. I have considered euthanizing myself, since
I just kept getting worse.
For the record, I'm a 62 yr. old woman. Thanks so much for your help.
Gran
I've followed Walter's suggestions almost to the letter and it is
EXACTLY on target, let me say again..not mostly, but EXACTLY. I'm now
entering in my second year and just like Walter said, occasionally
forgetting to take my pill. (Gotta keep up on that!!) Fortunately I
found this board, Walter and Arnold before I got to the crippling and
loss of self worth state. If you read only 1 post from this board,
this would be the one that would change your life.
This is just another one of many posts that should be a sticky on this
board.
~Joe
I an following this advice. I am on month 5 and doing ok little twinges here and there but doing ok.
My lifestyle has changed and lost 28 pounds.
I sleep at night.
Whatever else happens in my life I am glad I found this news group. I went to my docs yesterday and he just quoted the medical jargon etc etc, however he is keeping me an the "A" train which is something. I asked if I could see a rheumatologist about looking at some permanent damage i may have to my feet but he insisted that gout does not damage your limbs!! I will take the allo for 12 months and then if the damage is still lingering i will challenge him again but for now i am happy to be gout free. Sounds like it could be a group slogan "Happy to Be, Gout Free" or "Dont be Vain, Join the "A" Train
all the best to everyone
Tony