Beer and Gout

I have Gout. I've had it for about 10 years. I struggled with it before I knew I had it. Now I take a pill everyday and I haven't run into any problems with drinking beer. I would get flare ups in my ankles and couldn't walk for a week or more. I take Uloric, it messes with my stomach but I've grown use to it. Aside from that side effects seem minimal.

I drink crap tons of water which helps a lot. You need to, and I legitimately do, drink twice the intake of a non gout sufferer. I'd say I drink about 100-120 oz of water per day or more.

 

Can we somehow turn this into a Trailer Park Boys thread, so much better than Gout
I actually had gout in my early 20's believe it or not, I was getting whole rib eyes wholesale from the restaurant I was working in and drinking heavy, Dr couldn't believe it. I've changed my eating habits since then.

 

Do you have a family history of Rheumatoid arthritis? And/ or arthritis in general?
People with a family history are more prone to get gout..
ALSO, it is commonly called The "kings disease" . Mostly because only royalty coulsd afford the foods that trigger gout. Beer, shellfish,processed and/or cured meats, red meat, . Etc.

I got the gout approximately 10 years ago. My theory is that I ate too much fast food. And drank shifty beer.
Now I eat right and only drink craft. ..(and lots of water)
And I take allupurinol as well as drink cherry juice from concentrate. It's a little spendy but worth it.
ALLUPURINOL! !!!
Talk with your Doctor.

 

This plus 300 mg of Allopurinol a day. Haven't had an attack in years.

This is not medical advice. Just what works for me. Go see your doctor.

 

I get gout horribly about hmm 3 times a year I'm due any week month or so for some odd reason Fall is my time. I get it in my ankles and have had it in my hands wrists and elbows. It is excruciatingly painful and oh my uric acid levels are normal. I'm not giving up beer though, period. Sometimes you have to look at life not as how long can I live but if I am enjoying my life while I am alive. I won't take anything for it because I am not a big fan of long term medication. I have found that SOMETIMES not always, especially not at the zenith of the pain, that a combination Aspirin and Tylenol will take the edge off.

 

if you drink regularly acetaminophen and ibuprofen can be really bad for your liver

 

What isn't

 

I've suffered from gout for about 5-6 years now. I usually get 2-3 flare ups a year, regardless of my diet or how much I drink. Once you develop it there's no cure and you'll get attacks from time to time, no matter what you do to try and prevent it. My doc said red meat, processed deli meats and shellfish were the main trigger foods, but I don't eat any of those foods in excess and still get flare ups. I've tried all the meds and found that keeping a bottle of Indomethecin (sp?) can knock it out with 1-2 doses and 24 hours if I take them when I feel it coming on. Good luck.

 

I've had two bouts of it, although nothing since 2013. My first battle with it came in '11 and I had no idea what it was at first. I honestly thought I'd broken my toe somehow overnight by slamming it into my foot board and just tried to gut it out but it progressively got worse. Some people I knew mentioned it sounded like gout and to go see a doctor.

I did and she confirmed it. They put me on medication and it cleared up pretty quickly. Two years later it came back again although not quite as severely.

I eat less red meat now than I used to and only occasionally eat shellfish, but my beer intake has increased since I've really gotten into craft the last two years. Ironically, no gout during that time although I've been keeping an eye out. Every once in a while I'll drink a cherry concentrate or cut it with water if I ever feel any slight twinge of soreness.

It also turns out my grandfather on my father's side battled it so heredity definitely plays a role.

In addition to cherries, higher water consumption, celery, coffee and increased Vitamin C intake have helped me. Also, any supplements that encourage circulation have also provided some relief.

 

Interesting timing, this just happened to me for the first time about a month ago. Some of the worst pain I've ever experienced. Clearly diet and beer factor in, but you can't fight genetics (so says my doc). Since I love beer like the rest of us, I've been trying to figure out what ingredient in beer is the purine driver. My idiot search and analysis suggests that it is the unfiltered nature of craft beer, with a very suspicious eye toward yeast content, that may be the flare-up villain.

I am going taste-test home filtering some of my "cloudier" DIPAs with one of the camping water filter things I use on backcountry hikes.

Desperate times. Desperate measures.

 

Yep, first episode was after a summer of doing Guinness Stout regularly. I have since referred to it as Stuinness Gout. : )

Gout is hereditary and my Doc says about 10% of the population has it, but not everyone will find out. It is a deficiency of the enzymes that break-down uric acid, causing it to crystalize in your joints instead. It will typically affect your big right toe first as that is the joint that takes the most punishment. Subsequent episodes can affect any joint, especially if you suffer an injury. That deficiency is not something that goes away.

Allopurinol is a fairly benign medication and prescribed to manage the levels of uric acid in your blood. You just have to be sure to drink plenty of water when using it. I don't take it daily, even though that's the way it's prescribed. I take it based on when I think I've had more of the food and drink that I should have avoided.

Alcohol is not the only factor in flair-ups of gout. You have to be aware of a whole host of foods that are high in purines. Shellfish, sweet breads, organ meats, LOBSTER : ( ...There are plenty of lists to be found with a simple search.

All-in-all, it's very manageable, especially with the medication. Visit your doctor, get the blood test and follow-up with the prescription. Good luck.

 

Yes we can. Gout can make like a tree and fuck off

 

Gout sucks, but Allopurinol is a damned good fixer. Stay away from organ meats, shellfish, and 10 Sierra Nevadas a day. I lived through it and refuse to go back. You can feel that shit coming on like a thunderstorm! Little uric acid crystals get in your joints and cause havoc. I can tell people that have gout by the way they walk and grimace. Drink plenty of water.

 

My father frequently has gout attacks. His doctor tells him that the #1 offender, over red meat and shell fish is HOPS... as in hoppy beer. It's not "supposedly" related, it is directly related. That, and genetics obviously play a huge role especially if it runs in your family.

Last time we did a DIPA tasing this year we had Ruin 10, Hop 15, Pliny the Elder, Heady Topper, & Sucks and the next day he could barely walk his gout flared up so bad.

As stated above, it's best to drink plenty of water.

 

True, but if you are a regular drinker, acetaminophen can be really REALLY bad for your liver... "yesterday I was fine and today I have liver failure" bad. Not common, but it happens.

The difference between a therapeutic dose of acetaminophen and a lethal dose is frighteningly small, anyways. Best to avoid, there are plenty of other OTC painkillers that are not nearly as problematic.

On topic: Never had gout. *knocks on wood* Know plenty of folks who suffer from it, though, and it is one nasty customer.

 

So you joined this site when you were 17?

 

So drinking cherry beers helps?

 

Build up of uric acid is a mo-fo. Like most medical issues, there is a genetic component to gout and sometimes people that appear to be "healthy" deal with significant gout troubles, or people massively out of shape avoid it altogether. That said, your diet most certainly impacts it. Unfortunately, despite me fairly healthy diet, I've had three bouts with the gout, or as we call it around here "da' gout." Horrendous shit. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Simply resting a sheet over my big toe when I had gout was painful. Organ meats, shellfish, beer make it worse as do a bunch of other foods that you may not think would (like asparagus if I remember correctly). Stress can bring it on as well. Someone mentioned Allopurinol above. I've never taken it, but my brother does. Evidently it works very well, but you've got to take it every day. For folks who just get the occasional flare-up, taking Indomethacin is an option. That's what I've taken when I've dealt with it (and that's what I have on hand in case it rears it's ugly head, though the prescription is likely long-expired as I haven't dealt with it in probably two years). The thing with Indomethacin is it shreds your stomach. In my experience, it starts working after just one pill, but for the three or four days that you're taking it, you're dealing with cramps, gas and way more trips to the bathroom than normal.

Out with gout!

Also, when you think you've got gout bad, I want you to recall the story of a man I know. He had gout. Intense gout. In his elbow. While in prison.

Horrifying.

 

I had my first episode at around age 43 after a week in which I a) ran 30 miles with a long run of 8.5, not hydrating until the end, and probably insufficiently; b) ate oysters on 3 different occasions and shrimp once; c) as my end-of-the-month payday treat to myself, had a steak for lunch on Thursday; d) had multiple cocktails on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights; e) made a 5 gallon batch of (non Texas style , therefore with beans, which are as high in purines as red meat) chile on Sunday and probably ate 3 bowls myself and f) probably ate a double cheeseburger for lunch every day of the week, and also for dinner at home on Friday and Saturday. (This was a period in which I still ate like a high school kid.)Oh, except for the day I got a bag of fried chicken livers--organ meat--at the chicken shack I favored at the time.

In other words, you couldn't have had a more purine-laden week. (ohh, forgot--as part of what I thought was taking care of my body's training needs --I was preparing for half marathon--I was eating low calorie protein bars for breakfast to go along with the double cheeseburger lunches). I was running, lifting, in good shape. But it hit Sunday night, and hit hard, and I assumed it was an over-use injury to my left big toe (which had coincidentally been jammed and turf-toed several times in jock pursuits, HS football and baseball and later the whole ex-jock softball trip) Hurt so bad I went to the ER the next morning, and that's when I got my diagnosis from a somewhat sneery doctor who identified herself as a runner and obviously didn't believe me when I told her my training regimen, because gout is for fat overindulgent lazy bastards, right?

So she rolled her eyes and gave me indomethacin for the acute pain relief, a scrip I never filled, after doing some reading, for allopurinol as a preventative, a recommendation of abstention from alcohol (r-i-i-i-g-h-t, doc! my turn for an eye-roll) , diet control with a purine-free (impossible--most of the stuff that people eat when they are avoiding red meat, to get their protein, is full of purines: Beans, tuna, the aforementioned shellfish, chicken) or at least purine limited diet, and the old wives remedy of cherry juice concentrate when a flareup seemed imminent. Oh and get more exercise (she REALLY did not believe I had run 30 miles that week, and in her defense I did have an ex-football-player-going-to-seed body at 5' 11" and 195, at the time, still do).

So I've dealt with it awhile.

I've got something better now, 18 years later: Colchicine aka "colcrys". And fanatical attention to hydration. And moderation, but not fanaticism, with both diet and beer consumption. And, attention to getting enough potassium which somehow seems to help with uric acid metabolism (BTW, w/r/t beer, I had never heard about a hop connection, and that sounds wacky to me, especially when there is a much more obvious culprit: yeast, full of protein, full of purines, full of B vitamins).

But when I get a flare-up or feel the telltale signs that one is coming, the prescribed colcrys dose (which is one .6mg pill followed by a second an hour later and a third four hours later, then repeat on day two, and continue as necessary ) gets rid of it, before nit even blossoms, within 48 hours of first symptom, 72 hours max, for me at least. (that very first attack hurt for a WEEK and I still felt twinges at 10 days)

I get maybe 2 flareups a year, very manageable with the colchicine, and I drink 14-21 beers a week, primarily unfiltered commercial Belgian and American takes on Belgian styles, and my own unfiltered home-brew. Therefore yeast galore.

The doc that clued me into this, actually a PA, four years ago, managed to do it without rolling his eyes once.