Drinking water throughout the night

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I am an occasional gout sufferer for the past 26 years. A year ago I had a heart attack, and have been on a number of medications since then. I began suffering more frequent gout attacks in Sept 2016. My cardio doctor said none of the heart meds I take are indicated as having gout causing side effects. My general practitioner, sent me for blood tests and my uric acid levels came back as 7.0, which is on the high side of the expected range for uric acid levels. I was put on allopurinol for uric acid suppression. The attacks persisted,occuring every couple of weeks. I  use colchicine for 7 days when severe attacks occur (doc said I could take colchicine in addtition to the allopurinol), After my last gout attack, I began to drink 16-20 ounces of water during the night, waking every so often to drink, and finish all the water by morning. It calls for a bathroom trip or two during the night. But I have not had a gout attack since beginning the water drinking at night. It may seem like a hassle to do it, but it is way better than having those frequent gout attacks. I hope this helps someone else. Try it!

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  • Posted

    Oh well!  I guess it was wishful thinking to hope that the water drinking during the night was the answer to the gout problem. My gout has returned, after a 4 week hiatus. Called my heart doctor to ask if there is something he could put me on instead of the 81mg aspirin twice daily. His response was: given my history, he doesn't want me to discontinue the aspirin. He now wants me to see a rheumatologist to address my gout issue. I have started with another regimen of colchicine. 3 pills the first day, 2 each day for the next 5 days. Note: earlier I mistakenly specified 7 days after the intial day's dose.

     

    • Posted

      Your cardiologist is pushing you to a rhumotolgist and that will I guess lead to allopurinol or similar. However there are several blood thinners he could give you arpart from aspirin:

      Warfarin

      Apixaban (Eliquis)

      Dabigatran (Pradaxa)

      Edoxaban (Savaysa)

      Rivaroxaban (Xarelto)

      This is however a very complex area.

      Good luck.

  • Posted

    What was the heart med you were taking that might have cause gout.
    • Posted

      I was on Plavix until the end of Jan this year. I am now taking 81mg low dose aspirin in place of the Plavix.
  • Posted

    Hi Steven69209  

    After you finished your Colchicine, did you have another blood test to re check your uric acid level ?

    Have you been advised on what food not to eat. Food with too much Purine in can have an adverse affect . 

    Have you thought of stopping Allopurinal and take vitamin C tablets instead ?

    or even a health tablet ' Rose Hip ' which contains vitamin C.

    You will find ref. to vitamin C and Gout ,on this site 

    Regards ..Brian 

    • Posted

      Hi Brian I had bloodwork done on May 4. My uric acid level is down to 5.5, from 7.0 in Oct. I haven't taken the Colchicine in about 2 months. It seems the Allopurinol is doing its job. I have to be careful with combining certain foods and drinks. For one, I try not have red wine if I'm having red meat. Also if I have beer or wine, I must make sure to drink plenty of water afterward to help dissipate the purines from the beer. Also, I always used to drink a lot of iced tea, the powdered type, which I think was contributing to the gout attacks. Not sure which of the ingredients was the culprit. I only occasionally drink it now. Thanks for the vitamin C and Rose Hip ideas, I'll look into it.  Regards Steve

    • Posted

      Hi Steven

      How much allopurinol are you taking? As for 5.5 - if you never had gout that would be okay. However it is too high to flush out existing stores of urate stores. If your doctor is happy with 5.5 a) he's wrong b) he doesn't read the NICE guidelines which state ....after the inflammation has settled and titrate (adjust) the dose every few weeks until the serum uric acid (SUA) level is below 300 micromol/L.

      The guidelines also suggest that a load of checks are done on your heart.

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