LAST EDITED ON Jun-07-12 AT 08:54AM (MST)[p]
I've had it for six or seven years, fortunately not as bad as many people who have gout. Yeah, the pain can be really intense. A couple things I have found that help are staying very well hydrated, and when a flare up occurs to take a lot of Advil, eat tart cherries, either fresh or dried and drink lots of tart cherry juice.
If I feel a flare up coming on, I start drinking as much water as I possibly can(think to the point where you're peeing every 15-20 minutes all day long), take 600-800 mg of Advil every 4 hours, drink tart cherry juice and keep on drinking fluids as much as I can stand. I also find that soaking my feet in a hot epsom salt bath seems to help with the pain. If I catch a flare up early it usually goes away within a few days, but many people have flare ups that last a couple weeks.
For those not familiar with gout, also known as gouty arthritis, what causes it is elevated levels of uric acid in your bloodstream. We all have uric acid in our blood, but levels above 6mg./dl (that's 6 milligrams per deciliter) are where you can start having problems. At high levels, crystals can form and they tend to lodge in your joints, usually the big toe, ankle, achilles, but and also be in any other joint. Those crystals are like a pebble or grain of sand stuck in your joint, causing pain, swelling, inflammation and long term damage. For those who suffer with gout in advanced stages, it can be truly and literally crippling.
I once fished on a long range offshore trip out of San Diego with a guy who was suffering from a bad flare up when he got on the boat. He had to walk with a cane, his foot was swelled up to about 1 1/2 times normal size, his big toe was huge and fire red, and he could barely move around, he was in such pain. When we got back to land 10 days later, he still had it and nearly had to be taken off the boat in a wheelchair.
I'm just getting over a flare up right now, and I've finally had it. This one wasn't that bad, but still my ankle swelled up, my achilles was very sore and it was painful to walk, which is extra tough for me since I'm coaching baseball most days a week over and above work. I also umpire, and running around a baseball field is really tough and painful when just walking hurts. I'm gonna go see the doc to get a prescription for Uloric, which is a gout preventative medication. A few years ago I was a participant in the clinical trials for Uloric, and during the time I was taking that medication I never had the slightest problem with it.
