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I'm new to the site, but very glad to have came across it. I'm 32 yrs old and have had gout attacks since the age of 27. I've had two surgeries already to repair the damage that has been done on my knees from this. The first surgery was for a ruptured patellar tendon and just one month ago had another surgery on my other knee. I have had gout in just about every joint you can imagine. My doctor told me that he's never seen a girl my age, in his 20+ yrs of practice, who's had as severe gout as myself. For some reason my body doesn't want to respond to any treatment that we've tried. I'm currently on Allopurinol 800mg/day, and i'm taking Indomethacin almost daily just to be able to function. This is destroying my life and I don't know where to turn. I keep reading all the information on diet and such, but I really don't know where to start to change my diet. I would like to return to my Rheumatologist for answers, but i've lost my job due to inability to walk most of the time. I don't have any insurance and so the doctor will not see me anymore. I'm at my wit's end with this and was hoping that you, or anyone, could give me some pointers and get me going in the right direction. Thank you for reading and I look forward to any suggestions you may have for me!
Amy
Hi Amy- Sounds like you have had a nasty time with this.
Whenever I hear 'knees' – I think 'Psuedo-gout' , due to Calcium deposits rather than Uric Acid.
Has this been mentioned at all, in your diagnosis ?
Amy,
Can we get a bit more information about your condition? It would be helpful to know what types of testing was done to determine you had gout. Did they only do a standard blood draw or did they take fluid from the joints? Have you been tested for calcium related issues? What other conditions did they rule out and why?
Also, info about how long you have been on Allopurinol would help. Did you start at a low dose?
Gout is frequently coupled with other conditions such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and a bunch of others. Can you tell us what else you suffer from? (for the record I am technically obese…but just barely) Do you have any problem with iron in your blood (too high or too low), etc?
In regards to your questions about diet – this site is an excellent place to start. General searches on the internet brings up most of the same lists of foods listed in this site, look through all the posts in the forum also for ongoing discussions about specific parts of diets.
I am sorry to hear about your job. Hopefully we will be helpful in educating you so that you can start to beat this disease and live a normal life.
Stick with us and we will hopefully get there together.
To give you the most relevant advice, you will need to share some fairly personal information in public.
If you are happy to do this, we need as much information you can supply about yourself, your diagnosis, your treatment and your test results.
Of course, none of this is as good as a personal professional consultation with a gout expert, but if that is ruled out financially, we will have to do the best we can here.
The following information is relevant, though this is probably not exhaustive so please feel free to add any other information you feel is relevant.
Yourself: – Age, height, weight, gender, length of time you have had (or suspected) gout, joints affected, family history of gout (if any), other conditions, current medications.
Diagnosis – Has gout been confirmed by joint aspiration? If not, how has gout been diagnosed.
Treatment – full history of medication (and any alternative treatments) taken.
Test results – These should be numbers (with unit of measure) not low / normal / high grades. Particular relevance is uric acid, but other results may be relevant.
Could all readers please note that this information is best put into your profile. That way, all contributors can easily find the relevant facts without having to trawl through posting history – which is becoming increasingly difficult as the forum grows in popularity.
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