Friday, April 18, 2008

Natural Remedies for Gout

Natural Remedies for Gout Anyone Can Follow

If you are like me, you have a desire to get off gout medication while still avoiding painful gout attacks. I accomplish this by using gout cures that I have found from natural sources . I am a former user of allopurinol. I decided I no longer wanted to use it when I discovered that one of the possible side effects of allopurinol is possible liver damage. I also wanted to avoid taking Indocin or colchicine whenever I had an episode of gout (hyperuricemia). I began searching for natural remedies for gout I could count on to help me avoid painful gout attacks without the potentially dangerous side effects. The following natural remedies for gout treatments worked for me.


Natural Gout Remedies Suggestions


Cherries

Yes, I know, pretty much everyone knows about using cherries for gout, but I do want to mention that I do take a cherry juice concentrate as the main supplement in my gout treatments program. I specifically use Michelle's Montmorency Cherry Juice Concentrate. It is a bit costly, but it is like gold to me. I have no affiliation with this product, but I assure you from experience, it works! Michelle's products are from Michigan, not too terribly far from where I live. Michigan is a huge cherry producing state. Needless to say, I take advantage of living near the overabundance of fresh cherries whenever they are in season. As for the Michele's cherry juice products, if you prefer, you can get this product in capsules versus the concentrate. These are naturally produced products and you can usually get them at your local holistic food store.


Potassium rich foods

Potassium-rich foods are great natural remedies for gout that are critical to overcoming your battle with this painful disease. Potassium helps to liquefy uric acid making it easier for the kidneys to eliminate the uric acid during urination. The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for potassium is 3500mg a day. So, what are a few of the foods rich in potassium?

Bananas
Cantaloupes
Peaches
Yams
Baked Potatoes, with the skin
Carrots

In another post about gout treatments, I mentioned on that if you lose weight, you must lose it slowly or it increases your uric acid levels. One of the reasons for this is that if you lose weight too rapidly, you decrease your potassium levels too quickly which makes it harder for the kidneys to get rid of your uric acid. Go slow!


Water

Gout pain is caused by too much crystallization of uric acid in your joints. Water helps to dissolve those crystals so the kidneys can process them properly. It is for this reason that drinking a lot of water is a important part of any natural remedies for gout plan. If you feel gout symptoms beginning to rear their ugly head, a quick remedy is to drink plenty of water.


Fish Oil


I use supplements for this. Occasionally, I will eat salmon, however, salmon is high in purines and must be eaten in moderation. Trout and sardines are also considered high purine foods. Because of the high purines found in these types of fish, I consider fish oil to be part of my natural remedies for gout therapy even though it is a supplement.

Fish oil is known to have anti-inflammatory properties. In fact, in some scientific studies, fish oil was found to have the same benefit as NSAIDs (i.e. Indocin, Ibuprofen, Aleve) without the potentially harmful side effects. My physician stated we should be taking 5000mg (5g) a day. I recommend using a high grade distilled fish oil as some of the lower quality fish oils have small traces of metals in them.

It is worth noting that fish oil is also recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA) as a therapeutic help in the fight against heart disease. Make sure you have a minimum of 300mg of EPA and 200mg of DHA in your fish oil.

These natural gout remedies enabled me to wean myself off of allopurinol. I made my physician part of the process, and I recommend you do as well. These natural remedies for gout have helped me be virtually gout free for three years.

Natural remedies for gout are easy to follow when used wisely. The benefit of the natural remedies for gout method is not only does it help you beat gout, you also lower your weight and decrease your risk for dangerous health issues such as hypertension, diabetes, stroke, high cholesterol, and heart attack. Give these natural remedies for gout a try.


Until later,


Medicman




5 comments:

gotafish said...

Medicman,
Some very useful information here on natural remedies. Dont have gout but love those Michigan Cherries.

Medic said...

gotafish,

Thanks for visiting! Yep, gotta love the Michigan cherries. I live about an hour from Traverse City so I have an overabundance of them available to me in the summer :-)

Unknown said...

I will appreciate more information about your statement "one of the possible side effects of allopurinol is possible liver damage.".

I have been taking Allopurinol (300 MG) and Potassium Citrade (10 NG) for about 10 years for my gout problem and kidney stone problem.

Those two pills work well for thses 10 years. But in recent 2 or 3 years, I am having bitter taste in my mouth and I am wondering if such bitter taste is due to side effect of 10-year use of these two pills?

Sing

TECH said...

Thank you for the post. I too am trying to ween myself off of medicine for this. I am going to try some of your solutions.

Medic said...

Thanks for visiting Tech. Hope it works well for you. I am very happy with my results.