Hi & happy new year! VERY VERY interesting! I too am following the PH route & as soon as I started to lose weight (& stop my heavy drinking!)-I got an attack (see my 1st post).

I will get my blood pressure checked (as I beleive bicarb of soda can make this wore if you have high blood pressure?) & may well give it a try if my curren 'regime' does not work. Very very interesting-thanks for sharing!

Hi ggoede, thanks for your in depth post!

I am a long time sufferer, but this is my first time looking thru forums, and yours is the first I've come across!
I dunno if you still monitor it, but where can I find more info on the PH issue? i.e. how to measure, treatment, etc?

Also, is there any risk to taking baking soda?

-Mike

I have had gout for 17 years and tried everything from NSAIDs (Indomethacin helped), allopurinol (reduced uric acid level, but attacks continued) and Colchicine (fairly effective) recently. I still would get about one gout attck a month.

After reading this forum I decided to try alkalizing my body.

To reduce acidity, instead of Sodium bicarb (which I did not want to take regularly, being a cardiac/ blood pressure patient) I tried famotidine. Famotidine is taken to reduce acid production in stomach.

It worked. After years of painful existance I am living comfortably

I have not had a gout attack for about 3 months now. Even the body/joint pains are gone. I think reduction in acidity in the gut somehow reduces body acidity and crystalization of uric acid in joints.

Weight lose...
My doctor explained years ago that dumping about 30 pounds would be a help, not a cure. This is because no matter what size I am my enzymes can handle X amount uric acid. The bigger I am, the more cells die and that uncreases uric acid. However, when you lose weight more cells are elimnated so more uric cid occurs as your body 'consumes' the cells. Hence, big gout attack. Knwing this, I dumped 30 pounds intentionally and had a massive gout attack. Even baking soda did not protect me (maybe a bit but I was still in pain). I lost my weight and feel so much better. Moral here is to be prepared!

PH paper...
The stuff I use is Alkalive pH Stix available at Amazon. Like $8.00.

Alternatives to baking soda...
I am now drinking club soda (1 bottle a day) and taking 500 mg of vitamin C three times a day. I am 1 week into this experiment so I'll let you know.

I've heard about the connection between pH levels and gout.. my question is bs safe to take especially for someone that has hypertension?

Nearly anyone with gout will be more acid. If you have high BP BS is not for you. My experiment with 4,000 mg C is working. One tablet 4 times a day. A small piece of tophi let my life over the weekend. You mileage may vary. I switched from BS to C just to be able to say I was getting additional benefit. BS tastes nasty. I still drink club soda as it seems to alkalize the body but I can't say it doesn't affect BP, though.

Definitely, ask a doctor.

My father also suffered from very bad gout for years.....drinking, rich foods, lack of exercise ect. He then developed bad neuropathic pain in his feet which made it even harder for him to walk to get some exercise to loose weight & so the cycle of pain went on....... Last Fall I got him some negative ion socks which sports people use for removal of blood toxins & they have been fantastic for him. He gets out walking now most days & has reduced his meds a fair bit too which is helping to stop some of the side effects. He's had to reduce drinking alcohol because of the gout & does have a sweet tooth. I'm goin to tell him about the baking soda drink thing because after having so many doctors pour pills down his throat some better alternatives might be good to know. I'll let you know how he goes......

Just a quick up-date about my father's gout. He has really found great improvement with these thermomedic therapy garments with far infrared thermal therapy. He is now going out with his friends most days & is leading a much more active life stye. He is still trying to be careful with his diet but the warming support he gets from thermomedic products is making him feel pretty good just now so I'm really impressed.

Why is it in most of your posts it is your brother or your father that has had a problem, and these graments have made a dramatic cure??

In one post you talk about yourself, but I can not help but think this is just a sales scam on your part.

If it is not, please respond explaining how your posts in other threads have that general sales feel to them.

Anyone else here have experience with negative ion socks, or these garments above care to comment???

To me, I am smelling a scam.

If you doubt me, just check my posts and you will see I am a real person who posts to this site from time to time.

My above post criticizes happyfingers. Well, here in Japan getting ion socks and things like a cold patch of the same nature.

I am not going to say the ion stuff works, but here is what I have done since yesterday when I had my attack.

I have been taking baking soda, and vitamin c 4000mg, and as of 12pm today ion socks and the ion cold patch. I am not sure what to say here, but I think the ion stuff works.

I have never been free of pain so quickly, by 7pm tonight I am able to bend my big toe, walk on it. I am even sure I can go jogging if I wanted to. The pain is gone. I still have feeling in my big toe, it is not numb. The swelling is still there, but the pain is mostly gone. I will not say it is all gone, and I am 100 percent.

I am not trying to caca anyone here, because I know how it feels when that attack occurs. You want something to take it away. If you could, you would slice your toe open and take out those crystals if you could. I even think about cutting off my toe in times like this.

I forgot to mention one thing, my attack this time was moderate. Sleeping at night the bed sheets did not hurt, but putting on shoes and trying any kind of bending or pressure on my big toe would be very painful.

So, I am not sure about this right now, but this is the quickest I have ever been pain free from gout in such a short time. The inflamation is still there, but there is very little pain.

BTW, ion socks here in Japan are very cheap, $1 for a pair of socks, the cold patches as well are very cheap. Shop around before bying anything expensive.

Hi Makoto,

Tks for the interesting post. May I ask:

1) How many mg of baking soda and Vitamin C and how many times you took them a day before and after the current attack.

2) Have you used the similar treatments on earlier attacks?

Tks.

I decided that for 1 month, to allow myself every bit of benefit, I would abstain from drinking. Zero alcohol. I took 8000 mg of C, no BS and had the most pain free experience. I then had rum & coke and 3 days later had a pain in the ankle. I had these types of pain and it happens when tophi dissolves and breaks off. The offending piece goes away and I am better off. 12 hours later I got a taste of pretty severe gout pain. Burning in the feet and nothing I could do. I took naproxen and after12 hours still had some burning.

I suspect a rapid rate of change in uric acid levels from seemingly sudden liquor brought on a short but punctuated attack.

A change I am making is in the vitamin C. I will be using ester C.

I think in the future I need to drink less and maybe take care when going dry for a time.

JYY2. I was not taking any BS before the attack. I was taking vitamin C, at 1000 mg before the attack, every day.

I guess about a tablespoon full, mixed in with 2 liters of water. In the past I have done this about 2 times a day. I never really got the chance this time. I am currently taking BS, but in smaller amounts. I am still drinking 2 liters of water a day. I plan on doing that from now on.

I remeber you telling me taking BS everyday carries of risk of getting alkaline stones(akalosis sp?). I have a question, how often shoud I be drinking BS to prevent a gout attack? One every two days?? How much is enough? I just usually poor it from the bag into the plastic bottle directly, but my guess each time it is a tablespoon(not teaspoon).

The ion patch was something of a fluke for me, but I have to say I am impressed about something. Maybe it is the heavy combination of vitamin c, BS, and the ion patches and socks. But I have not gotten over an attack so quickly. The way this one was acting, I knew it was for 4 to 5 days for sure. I think BS helps shorten the duration of an attack. I read the above post about negative ions and my wife just laughed. For a joke she went out an bought some sock and cold patches, they are very cheap here. I tried it, because when you have an attack, you will try anything to get rid of the pain.

WOW is all I can say.

Any advice is allways welcomed JYY2 and ggoede1

Hi ggoedel,

Sorry you had a gout attack. I agree with you that your recent attack is likely caused by the rapid rate of change in uric acid levels.

May I ask what is your blood uric acid level and what is the amount of UA you excrete a day while you were taking 8000 mg of Vitamin C a day? Thanks.

Hi Makoto,

Tks for your info.

How much and how long can a person take BS? It seems there are no definite answers to the questions. For an otherwise healthy person, the BS makers' directions are:

To relieve heartburn: no more than 17.5 grams (3.5 tsp.) a day for no more than 2 weeks.
To alkalize the urine: no more than 16 grams a day. (They don't say for how long.)

I suggest that you ask your doctor about them. Personally, I have been taking about 1~2 grams of BS a day for several months now without any discernible side effects. More BS info can be found at: http://www.drugs.com/cons/sodium-bicarbona te.html

May I ask what are your blood UA level and 24-hour urine UA excretion rate? Tks.

A case report shows that 8 uric acid kidney stone patients were treated with allopurinol 100 mg and BS 2~4 grams 3 times a day -- i.e., 1.2~2.4 tsp. in 3 divided doses a day. All UA kidney stones were successfully dissolved in 6 months. This implies: for a healthy person, it appears to be safe to take 1.2 to 2.4 tsp. of BS a day for up to 6 months, or possibly more.

All,

I heard about the BS from my wife about a year or more. She has done a lot of research for me while I suffer. I am a first timer for this forum or any other. All this reading is interesting, and I hope, if I try something it will work. I have tried many remedies over my 20 years of suffering. Things I have noticed in my life is that certain things will bring on the gout attack. Sugar, wheat, coffee, large volumes of tea, Vitamin C, acidity ( lots of tomatoes) in foods, orange juice.

I have been to doctors and they all prescribe medicines but no one says what not to eat or drink. Allopurinol once per day and colchicine when an episode occurs. I have never really taken the allopurinol religiously, about 2-3 weeks in my 20 years. Then one time I went into refill the prescription from the doctor (Allopurinol) and the pharmacist said that it will damage the liver. Now I will never take.

So to make a long story short I will try the BS and see if it works for me, but I know there are other things listed above that I must abstain from. I know for myself I can't take vitamin C and BS.

One final question is ggoede, has all or most of your toefias disappeared?

Thanks for your feed-back makoto. No, I don't know of any dramatic cures for gout & it seems you're just feeling crabby coz you're in pain! Having lived in Japan when I was younger I understand the pressure you feel.

On a more serious note, one thing that's important to keep in mind is that Vitamin C is ascorbic acid...something that doctors will tell you should be limited during a gout attack so caution is required. It's better to eat pleanty of green leafy vegetables & strawberries instead to avoid making the gout attack worse with lots of supplements.

In my opinion, Vitamin C doesn't have to be limited in a gout attack.

What is gout? It is an increase of uric acid which causes sodium urate buildup in joints and thus results in pain.

Vitamin C has been suggested to lower uric acid levels in blood serum. (See: The effects of vitamin C supplementation on serum concentrations of uric acid: results of a randomized controlled trial. Arthritis Rheum. 2005; 52(6):1843-7) The only problem might be kidney stone formation if you're taking Allopurinol.

I haven't seen an RCT on megadoses of vitamin C yet, such as what was suggested above 1000 mg per day. I also cannot remark on sodium bicarbonate, but if it helps manage the pain, then it might be worth it. Be careful of the long term effects.

You state: "The only problem might be kidney stone formation if you're taking Allopurinol."

May I ask, how can Allopurinol cause kidney stone formation?