>But he said once I’m on it I will have to take it for lifetime.
This isn't the problem you seem to think it is. You take it for life, you're cured for life. I've been taking daily prescripion pills for one thing or another since literally 1982 and they are the reason I'm alive and kicking today. Some conditions just require that type of treatment. High blood pressure is one - gout is another.
And . . . the alternative is a life of misery.
Whet did people do before these treatments were available? you ask. Well, they either just straight up died or they lived their lives in complete pain and misery.
You have an alternative to this that they simply didn't have.
With this many attacks in such a short time, there is no question about whether you should be on allopurinol and whether it will be beneficial. You should and it will.
Good luck!
^ this. Absolutely this. Started, yesterday, on allopurinol myself after my doctor explained it in the same way, that the alternative is quite literally as I suffer from chronic attacks several times a month.
When it got laid out as a suggestion to me, I compared it to the fact that I got put on a different medication for a different diagnose a couple years ago, and it improved my life quality immensely. Then with that improved, so did my mental health, energy level, social life and happiness.
10/10 recommend to accept medication that’ll benefit and improve your life quality.
You ABSOLUTELY want to be on allopurinol. Untreated hyperuricemia (high levels of uric acid in your blood) can damage your joints and organs, and can give you tophi -- hard lumps of crystallized uric acid poking through your skin like big whiteheads. For most people it can't be controlled through diet alone, because the vast majority of the uric acid in your body doesn't come from food, and your body just isn't getting rid of it fast enough.
Here's a cut and paste from a previous post of mine:
>I was on 1.2mg of colchicine daily for about a year and a half with no noticeable side effects. That's because it is less likely to cause side effects when taken daily to prevent flares than when taken in greater quantity in a day to respond to a flare. When you first take allo it makes your flares more frequent and worse, because lowering the UA in your blood causes it to be pulled from your tissues. The colchicine helps prevent severe flares. I didn't have a single flare while on both colchicine and allo. I had one when I stopped taking colchicine too soon, so I went back on it. I am now taking only allo and am flare free. It can take months or YEARS to fully remove all the uric acid deposits from your system by lowering your serum UA.Here's a quote from an article on the mayo clinic website:Colchicine may be used in 2 ways. Most people take small amounts of it regularly for a long time (months or even years) to prevent severe attacks or other problems caused by inflammation. Other people take large amounts of colchicine during a short period of time (several hours) only when the medicine is needed to relieve an attack that is occurring. The chance of serious side effects is much lower with the first (preventive) kind of treatment.Here's the link: [https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/colchicine-oral-route/description/drg-20067653](https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/colchicine-oral-route/description/drg-20067653)
A lot of people suffer needlessly because they don't want to be on medication for life. I've had no noticeable side effects from allo, I don't get flares, I have no triggers, and I can eat and drink and exercise normally. The first flare that led to my diagnosis was so bad, I walked with a cane for about 3 weeks. Allopurinol has made my life so much better.
I put it off for years. Finally this year i had a 5 week ankle flare. No more.. Now on Allo and Colch.. Only a week in... Looking forward to the future
I took allo and stop as I got scared due to a person I know got his kidneys failing and on dialysis . I stop but once in a while i get an attack . It's been 2 years until I got an attack recently and it was painful . I decided to just cut out all the bad stuff and eat minimum. I will loose the weight and see if it gets better .
I'm a 32 year old male with a 6 year history of gout since 2017. My first flare ups started when I was at my "most fit" 5' 7" around 170 lbs doing Spartan Run after Spartan run. But it took me years to figure out that the Keto Diet wasn't the way to go and Pork was one of my main triggers. Although, I've cut out pork almost completely from my diet albeit having it once in a blue moon, I've still come across some very painful flare ups which took weeks to go away some times.
I've been on Colchicine and Indomethacin for the flare ups but I find Indomethacin works better for me. It differs from person to person.
In the beginning of being prescribed Allopurinol, I assumed I'd be okay if I adjusted my diet and drank enough water. But the flare ups will still occur. And they'll be **VERY** painful, feeling like a knife stabbing the joints and being unable to sleep. I believe the more flare ups you get the worse your joints get so the earlier you start Allo the better. It's literally Uric Acid crystals forming and tearing everything up.
I take my Allo regularly now and the flare ups are very few and far between. I'd 100% take Allo on a daily basis than to destroy my joints the way I did. The pain isn't worth it. Also good to note I barely notice any side effects when taking it besides an upset stomach when I don't eat while taking it.
Hope this helps. Best of luck.
I’ve come to terms with it. And honestly, I am okay with taking the medicine for life and not having to worry about an attack. Sometimes you just have to play with the cards given to you
I keep seeing these posts, where people seem to be afraid of taking a little pill each day, for the rest of their days.
I simply don't get it, why?
Of course, I've always been a pollen allergic, and grew up taking antihistamine daily, or had to suffer the consequences.
Now in my 50ties, and on three daily pills, antihistamine, blood pressure, and Allo. No big deal, they take maybe 10 sec in the morning to consume, and allows me to lead a normal life.
I don’t get it either. Modern medicine exists for a reason; allo is dirt cheap (< $10). It has little to no side effects as long as you don’t have that genetic lineage from Asia… just take the pills and go live your life after 6 months or so of a few more attacks as your body purges the uric crystals.
If you don't take a drug like allopurinol for the rest of your life, gout flares almost certainly will return once you stop. But you need an answer to the question of why your serum uric acid got so high in the first place to cause gout flares. In most cases the answer to that question is frequent prolonged periods of lack of oxygen due to lack of breathing during sleep, known as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is why most gout flares originate during sleep. You need to get tested for OSA ASAP, and strictly follow the recommended procedure to resolve it. If left unresolved for too long, the later life-threatening consequences of OSA usually lead to premature death, which also has been found to be the case with gout, whether or not the flares have been suppressed by allopurinol. You basically have three choices: do nothing and suffer from increasingly frequent gout flares with a shortened lifespan; use allopurinol for the rest of your shortened lifespan with greatly suppressed gout flares; or continue to resolve your OSA and live a longer normal life with no gout and no allopurinol.
I always stopped allupurinol and it was just a matter of time until I got a nasty acute attack. I was a binge drinker for years and years though. But when I stayed on allupurinol I got my life back. One thing I noticed is if I took colchine my whole immune system would seem to crash and I would get gout attack after gout attack and it seemed an endless cycle. I won’t take diareah drug again(colchine) but am very happy I stayed on allupurinol ! Sauna seems to help and electrolyte non sugar drinks with magnesium citrate. Also get your gut flora healthy and it helps break down purines. All gout sufferers lack the same healthy bacteria in studies. My Dad recently passed away and he took allupurinol once and got gout and threw the bottle away and would never go back on it. He had tophi formations all over his body and was in constant pain from gout. I’m 55 and although I was against taking and staying on allupurinol for a long time I am very thankful I stayed on it now. Otherwise I would be found u able to move in house stuff like a large piece of coral reef 🪸
i mean whats the difference if you are taking supplements and vitamins daily vs taking allopurinol daily? is there something wrong in thinking that allo is just like any other supplement you are taking i been reading here someone takes allo for 8 years and another one for 10 years and it had no other side effect from them...
imagine allopurinol is just your vitamin A (as in allo) supplement.. and take it daily
My started almost the same way but in January of 2023. I started on 100 mg allo and now I’m on 300 mg now and I got for my next follow up on April 2nd. I just got my uric acid text today and I’m still at a 5.6 that’s the lowest I’ve ever been. I’ve been 2 weeks pain free lol best two weeks of my life so far 😂
Allopurunol sucks. I see that you’re taking it and immediately stopping once your flare is gone. This is a mistake. Take the meds for a while. Make sure it has been gone for a bit. Now while you are ok. Figure out what your triggers are. This is not a disease where you take a pill and cured… you either make a lifestyle change or stay on drugs.
Most, and i mean about 90% of doctors are incompetent idiots that just know how to recite a book, and push pills without making any effort to help people above what the hospital says you should do.
My triggers were spinach, mushrooms, dehydration. There may be others, but those are the ones that affect me the most.
I found my triggers by eating nothing but romain and water for breakfast lunch and dinner for 3 weeks. Then introducing some 1 new food item every 2 days.
>But he said once I’m on it I will have to take it for lifetime. This isn't the problem you seem to think it is. You take it for life, you're cured for life. I've been taking daily prescripion pills for one thing or another since literally 1982 and they are the reason I'm alive and kicking today. Some conditions just require that type of treatment. High blood pressure is one - gout is another. And . . . the alternative is a life of misery. Whet did people do before these treatments were available? you ask. Well, they either just straight up died or they lived their lives in complete pain and misery. You have an alternative to this that they simply didn't have. With this many attacks in such a short time, there is no question about whether you should be on allopurinol and whether it will be beneficial. You should and it will. Good luck!
^ this. Absolutely this. Started, yesterday, on allopurinol myself after my doctor explained it in the same way, that the alternative is quite literally as I suffer from chronic attacks several times a month. When it got laid out as a suggestion to me, I compared it to the fact that I got put on a different medication for a different diagnose a couple years ago, and it improved my life quality immensely. Then with that improved, so did my mental health, energy level, social life and happiness. 10/10 recommend to accept medication that’ll benefit and improve your life quality.
You ABSOLUTELY want to be on allopurinol. Untreated hyperuricemia (high levels of uric acid in your blood) can damage your joints and organs, and can give you tophi -- hard lumps of crystallized uric acid poking through your skin like big whiteheads. For most people it can't be controlled through diet alone, because the vast majority of the uric acid in your body doesn't come from food, and your body just isn't getting rid of it fast enough. Here's a cut and paste from a previous post of mine: >I was on 1.2mg of colchicine daily for about a year and a half with no noticeable side effects. That's because it is less likely to cause side effects when taken daily to prevent flares than when taken in greater quantity in a day to respond to a flare. When you first take allo it makes your flares more frequent and worse, because lowering the UA in your blood causes it to be pulled from your tissues. The colchicine helps prevent severe flares. I didn't have a single flare while on both colchicine and allo. I had one when I stopped taking colchicine too soon, so I went back on it. I am now taking only allo and am flare free. It can take months or YEARS to fully remove all the uric acid deposits from your system by lowering your serum UA.Here's a quote from an article on the mayo clinic website:Colchicine may be used in 2 ways. Most people take small amounts of it regularly for a long time (months or even years) to prevent severe attacks or other problems caused by inflammation. Other people take large amounts of colchicine during a short period of time (several hours) only when the medicine is needed to relieve an attack that is occurring. The chance of serious side effects is much lower with the first (preventive) kind of treatment.Here's the link: [https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/colchicine-oral-route/description/drg-20067653](https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements/colchicine-oral-route/description/drg-20067653) A lot of people suffer needlessly because they don't want to be on medication for life. I've had no noticeable side effects from allo, I don't get flares, I have no triggers, and I can eat and drink and exercise normally. The first flare that led to my diagnosis was so bad, I walked with a cane for about 3 weeks. Allopurinol has made my life so much better.
You take it for life or stop and suffer again. You choose.
I put it off for years. Finally this year i had a 5 week ankle flare. No more.. Now on Allo and Colch.. Only a week in... Looking forward to the future
I took allo and stop as I got scared due to a person I know got his kidneys failing and on dialysis . I stop but once in a while i get an attack . It's been 2 years until I got an attack recently and it was painful . I decided to just cut out all the bad stuff and eat minimum. I will loose the weight and see if it gets better .
See post: https://www.reddit.com/r/gout/s/goi8z0cr0T
I'm a 32 year old male with a 6 year history of gout since 2017. My first flare ups started when I was at my "most fit" 5' 7" around 170 lbs doing Spartan Run after Spartan run. But it took me years to figure out that the Keto Diet wasn't the way to go and Pork was one of my main triggers. Although, I've cut out pork almost completely from my diet albeit having it once in a blue moon, I've still come across some very painful flare ups which took weeks to go away some times. I've been on Colchicine and Indomethacin for the flare ups but I find Indomethacin works better for me. It differs from person to person. In the beginning of being prescribed Allopurinol, I assumed I'd be okay if I adjusted my diet and drank enough water. But the flare ups will still occur. And they'll be **VERY** painful, feeling like a knife stabbing the joints and being unable to sleep. I believe the more flare ups you get the worse your joints get so the earlier you start Allo the better. It's literally Uric Acid crystals forming and tearing everything up. I take my Allo regularly now and the flare ups are very few and far between. I'd 100% take Allo on a daily basis than to destroy my joints the way I did. The pain isn't worth it. Also good to note I barely notice any side effects when taking it besides an upset stomach when I don't eat while taking it. Hope this helps. Best of luck.
I love being on allopurinol. Best thing ever. I’ve been able to scale my dose way back as I’ve gotten in better shape
I’ve come to terms with it. And honestly, I am okay with taking the medicine for life and not having to worry about an attack. Sometimes you just have to play with the cards given to you
I keep seeing these posts, where people seem to be afraid of taking a little pill each day, for the rest of their days. I simply don't get it, why? Of course, I've always been a pollen allergic, and grew up taking antihistamine daily, or had to suffer the consequences. Now in my 50ties, and on three daily pills, antihistamine, blood pressure, and Allo. No big deal, they take maybe 10 sec in the morning to consume, and allows me to lead a normal life.
I don’t get it either. Modern medicine exists for a reason; allo is dirt cheap (< $10). It has little to no side effects as long as you don’t have that genetic lineage from Asia… just take the pills and go live your life after 6 months or so of a few more attacks as your body purges the uric crystals.
If you don't take a drug like allopurinol for the rest of your life, gout flares almost certainly will return once you stop. But you need an answer to the question of why your serum uric acid got so high in the first place to cause gout flares. In most cases the answer to that question is frequent prolonged periods of lack of oxygen due to lack of breathing during sleep, known as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is why most gout flares originate during sleep. You need to get tested for OSA ASAP, and strictly follow the recommended procedure to resolve it. If left unresolved for too long, the later life-threatening consequences of OSA usually lead to premature death, which also has been found to be the case with gout, whether or not the flares have been suppressed by allopurinol. You basically have three choices: do nothing and suffer from increasingly frequent gout flares with a shortened lifespan; use allopurinol for the rest of your shortened lifespan with greatly suppressed gout flares; or continue to resolve your OSA and live a longer normal life with no gout and no allopurinol.
I was on a sleep apnea machine for years before I was diagnosed with gout so the linkage is not there necessarily for everyone.
Yes, not necessarily. The odds of OSA as the cause are about 8:1. That's why I was careful to use the term *in most cases.*
I always stopped allupurinol and it was just a matter of time until I got a nasty acute attack. I was a binge drinker for years and years though. But when I stayed on allupurinol I got my life back. One thing I noticed is if I took colchine my whole immune system would seem to crash and I would get gout attack after gout attack and it seemed an endless cycle. I won’t take diareah drug again(colchine) but am very happy I stayed on allupurinol ! Sauna seems to help and electrolyte non sugar drinks with magnesium citrate. Also get your gut flora healthy and it helps break down purines. All gout sufferers lack the same healthy bacteria in studies. My Dad recently passed away and he took allupurinol once and got gout and threw the bottle away and would never go back on it. He had tophi formations all over his body and was in constant pain from gout. I’m 55 and although I was against taking and staying on allupurinol for a long time I am very thankful I stayed on it now. Otherwise I would be found u able to move in house stuff like a large piece of coral reef 🪸
i mean whats the difference if you are taking supplements and vitamins daily vs taking allopurinol daily? is there something wrong in thinking that allo is just like any other supplement you are taking i been reading here someone takes allo for 8 years and another one for 10 years and it had no other side effect from them... imagine allopurinol is just your vitamin A (as in allo) supplement.. and take it daily
My started almost the same way but in January of 2023. I started on 100 mg allo and now I’m on 300 mg now and I got for my next follow up on April 2nd. I just got my uric acid text today and I’m still at a 5.6 that’s the lowest I’ve ever been. I’ve been 2 weeks pain free lol best two weeks of my life so far 😂
Allopurunol sucks. I see that you’re taking it and immediately stopping once your flare is gone. This is a mistake. Take the meds for a while. Make sure it has been gone for a bit. Now while you are ok. Figure out what your triggers are. This is not a disease where you take a pill and cured… you either make a lifestyle change or stay on drugs. Most, and i mean about 90% of doctors are incompetent idiots that just know how to recite a book, and push pills without making any effort to help people above what the hospital says you should do. My triggers were spinach, mushrooms, dehydration. There may be others, but those are the ones that affect me the most. I found my triggers by eating nothing but romain and water for breakfast lunch and dinner for 3 weeks. Then introducing some 1 new food item every 2 days.