Thanks jyy!
The results are in! I took 1 teaspoon baking soda in pm, then 1/2 teaspoon just before bed with 400 mg ibuprofen. I woke this morning and my ankle was almost 100% better! I went to the gym today and was back to lifting 405 lb deadlifts! That's in one day! The best recovery time ever for an ankle attack (they seem to take longer to subside than the big toe ones) was about 5 days slowly, but with the baking soda, the proof was definitely in the pudding, or baking, that is!

I will continue tomorrow, but as i'm trying to restrict sodium, I will only do one 1/2 tsp before bedtime for the next week.

Is that sufficient?

Can't belive all these years.. And the answer was so simple. C'est la vie.

Hi all, I have suffered gout now for 17 years.....It is an on going problem I have with me never knowing if I am going to be able to get up in the morning!! I am typing this with great difficulty as I am currently suffering with attacks in both hands/wrists and fingers...Both feet and in my left elbow this is the first time I have suffered with my elbow, I fell off my bike about 2 months ago and once the pain from that had healed I started getting the gout...Could this be connected??? I am taking 1600 mg of ibupaphen as well as paracetamol 3 or 4 times daily.

When my attacks are really bad I get really bad flue symptoms through out my body and in the night I sweat buckets with me waking up freezing cold and soaking wet! Does anyone else have this problem???

Lucky for me at the moment I have not got it in my knees.. I would not be able to walk at all..This has lasted 6 to 8 weeks before!

Now complaining over!!!

I have come across this site tonight and the first thing I am going to try tomorrow is baking soda!!!
I have only 2weeks before my vacation which I really really do not want to miss!! I prey it works!!
I will post a report in a few days.....Keep your fingers crossed for me! :lol:

richard day

hi richard,
gout really sucks. Many times, an acute attack will hit you when you least expect it. I've had gout since my mid-20s. I consider myself extremely athletic with high muscle mass and low to moderate fat levels. Gout is not just a disease of old fat people. I drank huge amounts of beer in my 20s, that with a combination of fluctuating muscle and fat levels and lazy uric acid excretement probably nailed me. My father, very lean build, has hyperuricemia, but never gout (he's 73 now). He had kidney stones, though.



Gout precipitated:
huge increases in alcohol intake in a short period
huge decreases in alcohol intake in a short period (gets you both ways :(
huge increases in body mass (especially muscle)
huge decreases in body mass (especially muscle)
athletics that create large amounts of lactic acid (weights/running/etc.)
stress! Big precipitator
injury! (and not just the target joint) big precipitator
diurrehtics/dehydration. Big precipitator

high purine diet? Bollocks! (as you english would say :)


flu like symptoms. Yes. It's an inflammation, bacteria living on those crystals chomping away. Many times, same reaction as if you got a bad cold or flu. I usually lose the entire nights sleep.. Not just the pain, but because of that muscle achey flu-like thing.



More common in lower body, especially feet/ankles as furthest from heart (low level of circulation.. Uric acid crystals get stuck down there)

here's what you do:
1. Get off the paracetamol immediately! Will lenghten gout episode!


2. Ibuprofen is great. Take 600 or 800 mg just before bed. Take 400 mg upon rising. Then follow normal adult dosage course. Indocin is the best, but it gives me bad reaction.


3. Baking soda! Thanks to this thread, this simple solution works! 1 teaspoon before bed (in 50 ml water). 1 teaspoon upon waking. Then, 1/2 teaspoon afternoon tea, you can then go down to 1/2 teaspoon before bed.. Next day, just 1/2 teaspoon afternoon tea... Etc. Do this for a week.



Try this! Your gout will be gone by the end of the week!



Cheers-
jonbo
christchurch, nz

To jonbo, re:... I took 1 teaspoon baking soda in pm..., I will only do one 1/2 tsp before bedtime for the next week. Is that sufficient?
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i am very glad baking soda in water and ibuprofen worked so well for your gout. I suggest do not take more than 1/2 teaspoon each time. You can stop taking it when you feel like you no long need it. Take care.

To: dicky_day, re: I am taking 1600 mg of ibuprophen as well as paracetamol 3 or 4 times daily...When my attacks are really bad I get really bad flue symptoms through out my body and in the night I sweat buckets with me waking up freezing cold and soaking wet!...
------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------ ----------------------
paracetamol (acetaminophen) is a pain reliever but not an anti-inflammatory. Therefore, it is not as effective as an nsaid for treating gout attack. Also, paracetamol is hard on the livers. Taking 1600 mg of ibuprofen plus 3-4 times of paracetamol a day could be too much for the kidneys and the liver. I suggest you check with a pharmacist or a doctor about it.

Symptoms of gout attacks include fever and malaise. Your sweating and flu-like symptoms could be caused by gout attack, or something else. I suggest talk to your doctor about them. Good luck.

You are right about the baking soda. I too had gout for over 20 years and had attacks quite regularly. I also always had some toe pain. I started putting 1/2 teaspon of baking soda in 2 bottles of water a day. I haven't had an attack since and can walk anywhere I want to go. The doctors that say baking soda doesn't work are saying that because no-one told them to believe it works. Doctors are very regimented thinkers when it comes to medication. Baking soda may not be a cure, but it certainly works better than any medication that I have ever gotten from the pharmacy.

I am 57 and have gout for 12 years. My uric acid in blood is 7 . The urine ph is 7 to 5 time to time. I have gout attack on foot joints once or twice a year. I only take nsaid when attacked, because the ua is not too high. Three or four years ago, soft tophi develops on the side of my left big toe.

The past 6 weeks, I lost 10 lbs by running trackmill one hour everyday and control the diet. A few days ago, the tophi becomes hard. I am panic.

Is there a good solution to remove or dissolve the tophi?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

It's a long term problem. There is no need to get panic. Buildup of tophi in joints may take years or decades, so does dissolving of tophi.

An average person produces about 800 mg of uric acid (ua) a day, about 600 mg is excreted by the kidneys and 200 mg by the gut. Therefore the blood ua is kept at a constant level. Can a over-producer or under-excreter maintain a constant ua level of 7 mg/dl? Yes, because the extra ua are dumped in the joints, etc. As tophi.

To dissolve the tophi we need to keep the blood ua level below 6 mg/dl. Sad to say, the best way is to take allopurinol, benemid, sulphinpyrazone, etc. I suggest that you see a rheumatologist. If necessary the doc will refer you to a podiatrist to remove the tophi surgically.

Thanks, jyy2.

I just start to take 1/2 tsp baking soda each after getting up and before going to bed. I feel the casual minor pain of the tophi has been reduced or disappearred.

I also schedule to see doctor for allopurinol or benemid or sulphinpyrazone to reduce blood ua below 6mg.

Is there a comment for the choice among allopurinol, benemid and sulphinpyrazone?

Your message are really help.

Rheumatologists are the best in treating gout.

Allopurinol can reduce the production of ua. Benemid and sulphinpyrazone (uricosuric agents) can increase the excretion of ua. Which one to use depends on your health condition and how sensitive you are to their side effects. Initiations of these meds often trigger gout attacks. The ways to avoid these attacks can be found in paragraphs 3.8 & 3.9 of http://www.Icuredmygout.Org .

It will be nice to have a 24-hour urine uric acid test to find out how much ua you excrete a day -- normal is around 600 mg. If you are an under-excreter, the doc may like to use uricosuric agents to increase the excretion. If you are already high in excretion, the doc may use allopurinol to avoid over-excretion of ua which increases the chance of uric acid stone formation in the kidneys, etc.

Your ua is only 7 mg/dl which is near normal. Your tophi seems to be rather minor. The doc may not want to put you on drug therapy due to its side effects. If you reduce the consumption of foods and drinks that are high in purine, fructose, naicin, etc. You may have good chance to reduce the ua level to 6 mg/dl. More info can be found in section 2 of the the above website.

I have been wondering what will these drugs do to us after taking them for years or decades. But have not seen any such study.

Dear jyy2,

i went your web page and read it again. You page has the most abundant information for gout that I could not find from other sources. It extremely helps. I really appreciate the sharing of your experience and knowledge for gout.

You mentioned, "more gout attacks occur during the night" in section 2. Mr. Painfree who stated the connection between gout and sleep apnea in the web page http://www.Freewebs.Com/goutcure/ may give the answer. It provides me more awareness of gout and sleep apnea. I snore and often feel sleepy during driving. I am used to nap a few minutes at the roadside. I did not know sleep apnea until I read its symptoms in newspaper about 4 years ago. I went through sleep diagnosis and was confirmed to have sleep apnea. The solution then is cpap. I wore it during sleep at night and quitted it after 2 months. Now I am going to solve the 2 problems at the same time. The first step, I just succeed to reduce 10 lbs of weight. By the way, do you snore?

You had gout badly for 27 years, but had not tophi developed. I assume it is the results of taking medicines to keep ua low. Is it?

If I take any of allopurinol or benemid or sulphinpyrazone, am I able to discontinue it when ua getting lower, tophus improved or other reason?
Am I able to continue or discontinue as I wish?

Thanks for your kind words. I am glad my webpage is useful to you.

There are more gout attacks at night because the body ph becomes low, as indicated by the first morning urine ph. I do not believe gout alone is the indicator of sleep apnea (.S.A). The only scientific data I know in this regard shows that the mean serum uric acid level of the 20 .S.A patients in a study, is in the normal range. This implies they have similar chance of having gout as people who have normal ua level. I have not seen any scientific data that shows .S.A causes gout, or the cure for .S.A is the cure for gout. Talk to your doctor about it.

I sleep on my sides. It's difficult to snore when you sleep on your sides. I believe I have tophi somewhere but I have been free of gout attacks for more than 3 years since I treated myself with baking soda in water. I have stopped taking ua lowering drugs and have been on unrestricted diet since.

Conglatulations for losing weight. But, why did you quit cpap? It's good for your .S.A. Have you cured your .S.A?

Allopurinal, etc., are meant to be taken for life. If the ua level becomes low, you can reduce the dosage. The standard advice is: don't treat hyperuricemia (ua> 7mg/dl) if you don' have gout attack, tophi, or kidney ua stones. Talk to your rheumatologist about it.

How about alka seltzer instead of baking soda? Might be a lower ph, but should still work and probably without potential for awful side effects.

Actually alka seltzer has more side effects than plain baking soda. Each tab of alka seltzer contains about 2 grams of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and 1 gram of citric acid, therefore it's less alkaline than plain baking soda. To take the same amount of alkalinity you end up with taking more sodium from alka seltzer than from baking soda. Why do they put citric acid in it then? To make bubbles.

If you are taking alka seltzer, make sure you are taking the kind that contains no aspirin. Aspirin can trigger and worsen gout attacks.

I suspect I was suffering from gout since 1993. That was when I had my first attack but I attribibited it to an accident. Anyways, I tried a number of things until I settled on baking soda. I now am back to my old diet and tophi are shrinking. As I write this I am drinking a beam and soda.


Another thing I am doing is losing weight. I was at 200 pounds for 7 years and am now at 187. My target weight is 175. As part of the diet I wrote off obvious sugar sources like coke and candy. That is tough to do. But, sugar makes the blood more acid so in dieting I am also helping to stay alkaline. In any case good luck. This baking soda thing works well.

Interestingly, losing weight creates more uric acid so I 'should' be in an attack now. I am not. Also, I am on about a half teaspoon of baking soda a day and have been for moths. No ill effects.

Jyy2, that was an excellent article (i cured my gout) thanks. I now finally have a good idea of what gout is all about. I have just started the baking soda and I am very excited about it. I have been suffering from gout for 20 years now. I am now at the end of a 2 week attack. The swelling is still there, but I can put a shoe on and I am finally going back to work. My question is how long should I stay on the baking soda? Also I still have some indocid left. Do I continue taking this and the baking soda. I checked with my doctor and there is no problem taking the baking soda. Will the rising ph take the stiffness away in my both toes with time. I will reply on the result of the baking soda.

Glad your gout attack is subsiding. A common mistake in treating gout attacks is to stop the treatment too soon. I would take the medicine (indocid or another nsaid) at a lower dosage for additional 1~2 weeks after the pain is completely gone. Soak the attack sites in warm/hot water, rub the swollen/stiff joints gently, and elevate them above the heart level to drain the fluids. Doing this several times a day will shorten the recovery time. The stiffness should go away in time. People can walk and run normally after the attacks are completely gone.

How long to stay on baking soda? I do not have a good answer for it. I would say as long as the urine ph is in the normal range of 5.5~8.0 you do not need it. You may like to ask your doctor and pharmacist the question, and learn from your own experience to find the answer. (i use baking soda about 0~3 times a week.) good luck.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is gout and cold feet.
I had gout 6 years ago in the big toe. It returned a couple of
years later and ibuprofen seemed to help. I had some pain
for short time in my instep as well.

A couple of weeks ago I had pain in my big toe which I treated
with ibuprofen and I had no problem walking. Then the pain
went into the other big toe. I remember reading something about
cold feet (which could cause crystalization just like sugar crystalizes
in cold water) and decided to bathe my feet in some really warm water.
Shortly thereafter, I urinated and noticed that my urine was really dark
yellow. My left toe felt well and the soreness went away as well as
the right toe. My urine returned to normal.

Did I dissolve the crystals or prevent even more of them from forming?
The water wasn't heated to the point of scalding my feet. I remember
when I had a massage a couple of times that the therapist mentioned
the urine color and not to be alarmed.

Any comments? Gout likes to crystallize in the cooler parts as well as
the outer ears (tophi).

At night I plan on wearing socks especially in the wintertime.

I have been a gout sufferer for 22 years. Initially, the attacks came along every 4 years or so. But when I reached my 30's, I began getting very frequent attacks. I have had attacks in all parts of my feet, ankle and in my knees. I have had gout with normal uric acid levels, and suffered no attacks with high uric acid levels. I have been off and on allopurinol for the last 10 years. I do not like taking a pill for the rest of my life, so I would go off the medication. I tried cherry juice, natural supplements such as quercitin which is supposed to inhibit uric acid like allopurinol. Recently, I had a severe attack precipitated by exercise and it lasted in varying degrees for 6 weeks. In the past, I found that cox-2 inhibtors like vioxx and celebrex are most effective against the inflamation as well as colchicine. But, I was so disgusted by this latest episode that I decided to go back on the allopurinol.

As far as cold feet are concerned. All I know is that the uric acid goes to the coldest parts of the body which is why the feet are most often involved. The only unusual thing about my last episode which involved the joints of my big and pinky toes as well as the joint between my second and third toes, was that I could acutally walk. Also, when I immobilized my foot, I felt no pain. This was much different from the past where I could not walk, and it did not matter if the foot was immobilized. In the end, this is a very painful ailment and my concern at this point in my life is destruction of the affected joints. Good luck to all of you.

Thank you very much jyy2 for all information you have provided in your website.
I was not lucky enough to have discovered it earlier. Suffered for 10 years and getting more painful each time, lately restricrted my breakfast to oatmeal only for the past 4 months, and the result was pain for the last one and half months. I was on allopurinol on and off for worrying of side effect. This round I was on prednisolone, the pain subsided, desperate though, seaching the web and found your website. Now I have got two small bottles of baking soda, to my supprise, one is completely soluble in water, the other is not. Which one should I go for?