Gout because of Proton Pump Inhibitors

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Have taken several forms of ppis over the past year on and off and for the past six months cimitidine. Now have gout lower back. You tell the doctor this and he doesnot want to accept it. I do not eat much in the way of acidic - bad diet - and this can be the only cause of it. Yet doctor tries to fob me off with how it is just some temporary thing - a month later it is still there. I have insisted on blood tests for kidney and liver as I know it is not some muscle strain and that would not last a month or have fatigue and

dizzyness with it either. He had also told me that people do not get a lot of coughing from ppis. WellI go it and nothing else could hvae caused it. I only ever had the bad coughing when taking the ppis, it would stop when I came off and start again when I started again. I then found about 50 people online with the same problem.

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  • Posted

    I'm finaly seeing some progress. Yesterday the swelling in 2 toes left and today I have flexability in all 5 toes. Top of foot and ankle still swollen. But slowly making progress. I'm hoping my uric acid level is coming back to normal. I have had to pee more than usual getting up 3 times  and 1 during the previous and  last nights sleep. Also went many more times than usual in the day yesterday. Maybe my kidneys are functioning correctly now with lower uric acid levels??? This also shows that I'm drinking plenty of water to flush out my system. Today I'll start drinking the alkali water discussed last time. PS my wife bought the cherries in the grocery store. Dried cherries will also probably help. Not the Marchiano cherries that are full of sugar.

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    • Posted

      Glad to hear you are better. I find that whatever form of natural supplement I take - same as with convenientional medicine - I get side effects. I am feeling awful from the acv cap;sules I took three hours ago.

      Yet if you said that to a naturopath he would say OH NO. THEY DO NOT CAUSE THAT! They always generalise and they never want to a\ccept negatives.

    • Posted

      I have been keeping a diary or log of what pills I take vit. & meds. also what I eat for the last 3 weeks. Absolutely no high fructose corn syrup ( you would be surprised to know all the foods that have it in them, like catsup and almost all fruit drinks, etc. check before you eat read the lables. I have cheated 3 times with a small portion of meat, like peparoni on a pizza. And breaded chicken in a salad 2X. It took 3 weeks before I lost a pound, which you know helps with gout, the more you lose the better. I have cubumbers sliced and in apple cider vinegar & spices. Sometimes I add onion slices. And I haven't had milk in 5 years until they said that low fat would help with gout, now I'm having corn flakes or rasion bran with the low fat milk 1%. Remember we are all different so don't give up stick with the diet it will pay off for you. Try not to watch commercials they always show good food, but not really good for you and that teases me real bad. Look up all the foods that are high in purines and avoid them. It's a hard road to go down but you can do it if the pain is bad enough. That's what I thought, so I'm sticking with the diet even after I have recovered for a while and longer if needed. Maybe I'll cheat and have meat only on Sunday's for example. Then if all is going well occationally 2X a week. After that we'll see. 

      KEEP A LOG OF ALL THAT YOU EAT. YOU OR YOUR DOCTOR MAY DISCOVER WHAT IS WRONG OR RIGHT FOR YOU. 

      Best wishes for your health Tim

    • Posted

      The doctor is clueless about diet being connected to food. I do write down everything I eat and it has nothing to do with what is wrong, this is all because of the proton pump inhibitor medication.
    • Posted

      proton pump inhibitors are usually to stop the acid in the stomach so that people with a lot of stomach pain - ulcers etc can give their stomach a rest so that it settles and gets better. I started to take them because of a stomach ache but found that the problems I had with pains in ears, pressure in ears, headaches etc all went away whenever I took them so it was agreed id continue to take them for that. Then I got worse pressure in ears and head and headaches etc and a terrble cough and then the gout in my back because of it. Presumably if the acid is not in the stomach it has been sent somewhere else - the back in my case. I have not taken the medicine for three weeks now and this means the cough has gone but the back is still bad, though not as bad as then. Vitamin C seems to be helping me with the pains in head and ears now.
    • Posted

      seems to be a tad hostile this pump. If I get acid reflux ,I take

      Omeprazole 20mg  which does the trick. Have you had your head scanned

      to see what is going on?

    • Posted

      My doctor and I discussed it and agreed that the pain in head and ears was caused by silent acid reflux. This explained how come the ears would get all full and blocked over and over again and this only stopped when you stopped the acid coming up. I have been switched to omeprazole 20mg now and have not started taking it as it can also give you bad back ache - gout - pains in legs etc. But it is different for everyone. IF I just get a bit of acid reflux I would take bicarbonate of soda with no side effects.
  • Posted

    I was so glad to find your post. I was perscribed a PPI for Gerd. 31 days after being on the medicine I had an acute gout attack in my big toe. During this ordeal I have had 2 sets of x-rays, opiod medicine, 2 steroid shots in my joint, and one prescription for steroids. Unlike most people my gout lasted for 2 months. My uric acid level was at 6. I don't drink alcohol, and my diet was healthy so it didn't make any sense to me. I kept saying there was a correlation between the medicine and gout and was ignored. Finally, I weaned off of the pantoprazole. However, during this time I ate things that fell in the what I should eat for my stomach and things that I should not eat for gout. The only time I had toe pain was on the days I took the pantoprazole. I assumed it was that medicine. I have about 30 medicines on the can't take or allergic reaction list. So they put me on prilosec as I am still having the stomach problems. 3 days into the meds and the gout is back again. Needless to say, no more PPIs for me. This appears to be some reaction from the lower acid production in the stomach and the gout rather than the medicine that is causing the lower acid production. I have tried the cherry and it didn't help at all. That is because my uric acid level was just fine and that was not the cause of my gout. I also tried the baking soda and water which is supposed to provide rather quick relief. Nothing. I am deathly allergic to Indomethicin, can't take NSAIDs due to kidney issues, and I found out that I can't take the gout medicine that starts with a C. Sorry for my memory issues as my main issue is a brain injury. I think that is part of why I react so strangely to medicines. I think that my having gout after taking the prilosec confirmed your theory that it was the function of the lower acid in the stomach not the medicine that was causing it. Needless to say I immediately stopped taking the prilosec. My concern is that the crystals could cause permanant damage in my toe on top of the stomach issues. 
  • Posted

    I have had this problem as well. I have been on ppi drugs since I was 15 and am now 34. I have had gout issues and then serious problems since I was 20.

    I have done all the stuff, cherries, herbal stuff with varying minor success at times but it would always come back or it just became unnafordable.

    More recently in the last few years I decided it was the ppi drugs that is causing my gout. By not fully digesting your food because of a lack of stomach acid causes a b12 deficiency, depletes other necessary minerals and adversely affects your blood. The blood cells are not uniform in size, they clump together, and are mishapen. I think this causes the kidnies to do a poorer job filtering which causes gout. All personal theory.

    I had some help from a homeopathic doctor to show me this. And he told me to take "hcl with pepsin" with food, dont drink anything right before you eat. Be hydrated though, but wait 15 or 20 minutes from drinking to start eating so you arent diluting your stomach acid. Take a bite of your food chew it until you are ready to swallow and throw in the hcl with pepsin then swallow. Do not chew the capsule, it is acid, it is to mimic and promote stomach acid so digestion can occur more naturally.

    He also gave me berberine to take as well. I think it just helps the blood get better, and he gave me a shot of b12. The last two things i think help speed up the process of getting my blood back into shape but not necessary. Getting my digestion back to order I believe has helped me more than the allopurinol i have been on for the last few years.

    I am a lot better now but I did not get properly treated quickly enough (my fault being young and dumb and just drugging my way though it with pain killers) and some of my joints are eaten away from the acid. So I will never be perfect, but the hcl with pepsin works for me and i can buy it on amazon now. I used to have to go to my homeopathic doc.

    Good luck, hope this helps someone.

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