Many common gout medications have serious side effects.
In this article I explore some side-effects of the most commonly prescribed drugs.
Gout is treated with various types of medication.
Some medications relieve the swelling and pain, but destroy your stomach lining.
Another drug for acute gout causes nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
And yet another drug for treating hyperuricaemia can actually cause gout attacks! NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) reduce the pain from gout by relieving the pressure on the joint from swelling.
However they are known to be particularly damaging to the stomach.
One leading specialist on gout, Bryan Emmerson, Professor Emeritus, says in his book that "damage to the stomach lining should be considered an effect of treatment, rather than a side-effect!" I was once in the hospital receiving treatment for pneumonia, and the physical who was looking after me there found out that I was regularly taking the NSAID Diclofenac for gout and another injury.
She was surprised that I had not also been prescribed another drug, Omepazole, to help protect my stomach from the effect of the Diclofenac.
So here she was suggesting that I needed to take another drug to protect me from the drug I was already taking! Colchicine is another common drug for acute attacks.
However this drug is highly likely to give you nausea or vomiting.
In fact the correct dosage may even be determined by finding the point at which it makes you sick, and then reducing the dosage.
I don't even want to think about making a run for the bathroom while your big toe is screaming in pain.
Allopurinol is prescribed to help prevent hyperuricaemia.
It works by inhibiting an enzyme that's needed to actually produce uric acid.
It is a high concentration of uric acid that causes urate to crystallise and gather in the joints where gout occurs.
When my doctor discussed giving me allopurinol there were a couple of things that he said that surprised me somewhat, and led me to search for a more natural solution.
Firstly he warned me that this drug to prevent gout might actually give me a gout attack! Secondly he pointed out that there was a risk of side-effects, including a nasty skin rash - if I had this side effect I could not ever take this drug again.
But the thing that actually bothered me the most was that he said that I would be taking this drug for the rest of my life.
It was this thought that I might be on drugs for the rest of my life that got me into researching alternative approaches to gout, and hyperuricaemia in particular.
It is well known that there are completely natural ways to minimise the chances of getting gout, such as eating certain foods, and avoiding certain other foods.
Also there are many home remedies that are effective in keeping your system gout-free.