Saw Palmetto instead of Allopurinol for Gout

[Ednan Orallo]

Hi, I’m new to this forum and I would like to get some advise/help from you guys. English is my second language so please bear with me.
I was diagnosed with gout by a doctor when I was in the U.S and took some ibuprofen for 5days according to what the doctor prescribed. embarrassing to say I didn’t go back to the doctor after she gave me a call to go back to her to explain to me what I should do or maybe prescribe some medications because I’m more of a natural way of treating sickness.so I opted to take Apple cider vinegar as what I found as an alternative on the internet. it helps on relieving the pain on my ankle and up to this point I’m still taking it 1tbsp 2-3 Times per day. although I still feel pain but it’s manageable, I think.
now I’m In the Philippines for vacation and my mother in law urged me to have blood work and here’s the result:
uric acid 608.17 normal is 203-417 umol/L
creatinine 160.83 normal is 44.2-144.4 umol/L.
after getting these numbers i had an appointment to the doctor and he prescribed me saw palmetto to lower my gout and vexamet for pain. my wife asked him why not allupurinol and the doctor strongly disregard that drug and said that organic medicine is better than synthetic one. now my question is can saw palmetto lower my uric acid? because my wife is an RN and she is quit confuse how can saw palmetto lower down my uric acid when its supposed to deal with prostate. I need enlightenment. thank you.

[nobody]

Hi,

You can thank your mother in law for her advice.
Your uric acid level is dangerously high. Most likely this didn’t happen overnight and is a problem you’ve had for a long time (if you’ve had routine tests in the past, looking at old results would settle the matter). It is not immediately painful and the problem doesn’t go away when the pain goes away.
You could try whatever you like to lower uric acid. Allopurinol is a very reliable way to do so whereas I would also be skeptical about saw palmetto. But whatever you do, you’ll be able to tell whether it worked or not by getting more blood tests.
What matters is that you do not forget about this problem when your pain goes away. Unless your gout diagnosis is shown to have been a mistake, you should keep doing blood tests until you find a way to lower your uric acid.
It also matters you see a doctor you can trust because this is a serious problem requiring serious lifelong management. If you are on a short vacation, maybe it’s best to wait until you come back home to make a decision about allopurinol.

There may have been a reason besides your preference for natural medicine why the doctor you saw didn’t want to give you allopurinol: do you know why your creatinine is so high?
If you aren’t a weight lifter or something, you might have a kidney problem. If so, I have no idea how dangerous it would be for you to take allopurinol. Fortunately, there is at least one alternative which is equally effective and convenient. Unfortunately, it’s also synthetic.

Since you don’t like synthetics, I’m surprised you haven’t been give colchicine which has been used for gout since ancient times. But like ibuprofen and vexamet, it’s only used for symptoms and is no alternative to allopurinol.
Maybe the doctors you’ve seen have ruled colchicine out because they are concerned about how well your kindeys are working.

[Keith Taylor]

I’ve checked PubMed for saw palmetto. Because I’ve never heard of it before. Which would surprise me, if it had any connection to gout treatment. But there is nothing.

I found 20 studies on saw palmetto or Serenoa repens. But they were mostly related to prostate or urinary tract problems. Then I found another 515 studies that mentioned saw palmetto or Serenoa repens. But definitely no mention of gout or uric acid.

So, Ednan, I think you have 2 options:
Either 1) Seek a better doctor.
Or 2) Go back for a blood test after 2 weeks and see if your uric acid has reduced.

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Saw Palmetto (Serenoa Repens)

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