No matter how hard we try at some point we are going to fall down and need help getting backup.  Whether it is an injury or a virus that leaves us in need of help the greater the impact the more urgent the care and the more we are willing to place our care in the charge of others.

Recently I was lucky enough to experience the full force of gout.  Gout was once considered a condition of the wealthy and was thought to be brought on by rich fatty foods.  Now it is attributed to genetic traits passed down, heavy drinking or diets that dehydrate.  Gout impacts about 4% of the population and is more predominate in men over 40 and some women past menopause.

The condition usually starts in one joint and is most often found in the ball of the foot, but can occur in almost any joint.  The condition is the result of Uric Acid, a naturally occurring waste in the body not efficiently being removed from the body by the Kidneys.  Uric acid is also the result of eating foods high in purines, Red meat, some shell fish and dried beans are examples.  When sufficient Uric Acid builds up in the joint it converts to Uric Acid crystals.  The crystals irritate the joints and swelling distends the joint creating misshapen appendages and swollen extremities.  The pain can be aching, stabbing, shocking and raw all at the same time.  Sensitivity is so great that even a sheet touching the area is too much.

My condition not identified right away lasted three months with extreme pain the first 3 weeks and enough problems to keep me out of shoes for the remainder of the three months.  With both feet impacted and one knee walking at all was a challenge at times.  During the three months distances greater than 50 feet were very rare.  Making it 15 feet was often a huge challenge!

The pain, far worse than any I had experienced sent me for medical help.  Well meaning doctors prescribed a number of medicines listed below.  Notice the side affects for each and consider which you might take, to me they seem like a deadly cocktail!  They are much like Russian Roulette.  Are you the individual that will land with one of these side effects? 

Would you load a gun, point it at yourself and pull the trigger if you knew that 1 in 5 bullets miss fire, maybe 1 in 10, or 1 in 100, how about 1 in 1,000?  Statistical models for medical drugs are often done with less than 1,000 test subjects which suggests evidence of these side effects are more often than 1 in 1,000.  If 10 people show symptoms it is 1 chance in 100 you may be imacted.  If it is 20 that makes the chances 1 in 50 and 50 makes it 1 in 20, not great odds, but they never tell us the outcome so why worry?

Allopurinol 100MG does not alleviate acute gout, but is “useful” in avoiding future attacks

Side effects

• upset stomach
• drowsiness
• diarrhea
• skin rash
• painful urination
• blood in urine
• irritation of the eyes
• swelling of the lips or mouth
• fever, sore throat, chills and signs of infection
• itching
• loss of appetite
• unexpected weight loss

It can also cause breast enlargement in both females and males.  And if that is not enough it can cause eosinophilia, hepatitis, renal function decline and, in some cases and hypersensitivity syndrome. This drugs can cause Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TENS).  The last two are life-threatening dermatologicalconditions.

Naproxin 500MG relieves tenderness, swelling caused by arthritis

Side Effects

• constipation
• diarrhea
• gas
• sores in mouth
• excessive thirst
• headache
• dizziness
• light-headedness
• drowsiness
• difficulty falling asleep or falling asleep
• burning or tingling in extremities
• cold symptoms
• changes in vision
• blisters
• skin reddening
• itching
• rash
• hives
• difficulty breathing
• swelling of eyes, lips, tongue, throat, arms, hands, feet, lower legs or ankles
• excessive tiredness
• hoarseness
• pain in the stomach
• nausea
• loss of appetite
• Yellowing of skin or eyes
• flu like symptoms
• bruises or purple blotches under skin
• pale skin
• fast heartbeat
• cloudy, discolored or bloody urine
• back pain
• difficult or painful urination
• ringing in the ears

• hearing problems

Other effects not mentioned include possible heart attack or stroke, but whose counting

Colchicine.6MG reduces inflammation, reasons for why are unknown

Side Effects

The most common side effects of colchicine are dose related and include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. One of the most worrisome side effects of colchicine is that it can damage the bone marrow causing severe anemiaand low white blood counts. Reduced white blood cell counts can increases the risk of infections. All patients taking colchicine long-term require blood count monitoring. Colchicine can also cause hair loss, weakness, and nerve irritation.

Indomethacin 25MG to relieve pain, tenderness, swelling and stiffness associated with arthritis

Side effects:

• chest pain, weakness, shortness of breath, slurred speech, problems with vision or balance;
• black, bloody, or tarry stools;
• coughing up blood or vomit that looks like coffee grounds;
• swelling or rapid weight gain;
• urinating less than usual or not at all;
• nausea, stomach pain, low fever, loss of appetite, dark urine, clay-colored stools, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes);
• fever, sore throat, and headache with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash; or
• bruising, severe tingling, numbness, pain, muscle weakness.

Less serious side effects may include:

• upset stomach, mild heartburn, diarrhea, constipation;
• bloating, gas;
• dizziness, nervousness, headache;
• skin rash, itching;
• blurred vision; or
• ringing in your ears.

It is also reported to cause Psychosis, hypertension, tachycardia, photo sensitivity, bronchospasms and possible kidney failure.

Gout can be a sign of renal (kidney) failure and gout not brought under control can lead to kidney failure as well as permanent damage to the involved joints.  However, none of the medicines above reversed the uric acid crystals or were used to reduce uric acid levels.  None of the above medicines treat the actual problem of gout, elevated Uric Acid levels and Uric Acid crystals.

My condition was not a genetic disposition and since I do not drink alcohol that was not an issue.  Over 40 and male I fit that grouping, but am not the type to do crash diets.  My meals are regular and very well balanced.  So what caused the Gout.  Interestingly, I had a mild virus that was moving through the community.  I exhibited a mild temperature of 1.5 degrees above normal, a feeling of lethargy with a mild scratchy throat one evening in the early on set of the virus.  No big deal, the lethargy lasted two weeks.  I noticed a subtle drop in appetite but assumed it was the summer heat.  As common with a virus, my kidneys were more active than normal.  What I failed to notice is that I had no desire for liquids and was drinking at most a glass or two of liquids a day.  During the summer heat and out doors that is not nearly enough!  I had dehydrated not providing enough liquids to transport Uric Acid out of my body.  Once out of balance the body has a hard time adjusting back to normal if not caught early.

Toward the end of the two week virus I noticed one foot aching as if I may have dropped something on it.  Active and always into something I did not remember such an event, but simply assumed I should be more careful.  Over the next two weeks the joint around the ball of my foot became Red, swollen, hot and quite uncomfortable.  There were no lesons showing external injury, no rash or bite signaling an external source of irritation and no Red streaks suggesting a blood clot.  I must have really hurt foot, possibly a simple fracture or I had seriously jambed the toe.  At this point I was doing my best to stay off of it with Ice packs heat (and lots of whining and complaining, it just seems the right thing to do).

Things changed completely when the second foot took on similar symptoms and the full force of gout took hold.  Our guess was gout!  I made an immediate appointment with the doctor and landed in the emergency room.  The emergency room suggested it may be time I cut back on the alcohol before I completely ruin my liver.  Yes they were serious since I had told them no one in the family had gout.  When I mentioned not drinking I got the feeling they were looking for the AA number and on the verge of saying denial is the first sign of an alcoholic.  Shouldn’t alcohol be the first sign and what are you supposed to say if you don’t drink alcohol?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a puritan, I just don’t like the taste of alcohol, for me it is ice tea year-round (I know a potential diuretic (it seems to have little affect on me)).  Chocolate is my greatest addiction along with almost any food.  Yes, I am a little overweight at 5′8″ I weigh in at 235 pounds.  I have what is politely termed an athletic build.  Of Scottish heritage I look stout with large bones and thick muscles, well suited to tossing telephone poles size logs.  My body fat is at 25% which is reasonable for my age with 18% body fat being good and 12% being athletic for males.  Five percent is what body builders show at and that is a percentage that can only be held for a very short time.  Muscle mass weighs twice that of fat and larger bones have a greater mass, yet the BMI (Body Mass Index) and the average weight to height in medicine suggests I am obese.  A person 5′8″ should weigh 160lbs.  At my weight I am 75 pounds overweight.  If I lost 10% of my body fat placing me at a healthy 15% body fat I could afford to lose 23.5 pounds putting me a 210lbs not 160lbs.

Why am I telling you this, because it is the crux of the problem with medicine and the health care system that surrounds it.  Average numbers are used to determine the most common attributes, but when using statistics you need more than the average.  Two people averaging 100 pounds means nothing since one can weight 50 and the other can weigh 150.  One can be anemic and the other over weight, or one can be the normal weight.  Schools for years misused statistic suggesting that only 20% of a class can be in the upper echelon and at least 20 percent needed to be in the lower cluster with only 60 percent in the middle.  Faculty adjusted grades and tests to attain this perfection.  It was critical to a well run classroom and the integrity of the faculty.  Out of normal grade groupings meant the teacher was not doing their job.

Statistics is an indicator of possibilities not a representation of life.  However, the health industry has pounced full force on that average condition.  It gets even worse when statistics are miss interpreted to assume a corollary to a condition and outcome.  Did you know there is a less than a 10 percent cure rate for cancer with Chemotherapy, yet is it a predominate treatment?  Did you know over 98% of all murders eat Wheat?  Did you know their is no cure for diabetes in the medical community and that all medicines for diabetes only mask the symptoms often throwing other body chemicals and functions out of balance?  Some of these medicines are no longer on the market having far to serious an effect on way to many people.

While prescribing traditional, approved medicines not once was I told about the benefits of Black cherries, Black cherry concentrate, celery seed, bananas, strawberries or vinegar to reduce inflammation and pain.  No one in the medial community told me Black Cherry concentrate and the Cherries would help the body convert the Uric Acid crystals back to Uric Acid which the body could then excrete through the kidneys.  They probably just did not want to bother me with such trivia.

I looked at the poisons prescribed and opted for conventional wisdom based on those having experienced Gout.  The pain rapidly fell off with the introduction of these foods and a reduction in the Red meat and dried beans consumed.  As long as I stayed off of my feet they gradually improved.  constricting my feet with shoes and walking spelled disaster and a set back, I was irritating the joints that were filled with sharp Uric Acid crystals.  No one doctor mentioned staying off my feet or not wearing constricting foot wear.  None could predict or would venture a guess as to the recovery experience.   Interesting to note, none of the foods consumed had any warning labels or side effects.

The symptoms for gout are Red, Swollen joints that are hot to the touch and quite painful.  Infections can also carry the same symptoms.  The medical solution is to stab a 2 inch needle directly into the irritated joint and draw out some of the fluid.  If Uric Acid crystals are present it is Gout.  Gout is also indicated by an elevated level of Uric Acid in the blood stream, but that is not definitive, it only suggests an elevated Urice Acid level which can cause gout.  Does the needle stab hurt an already extremely painful foot, ABSOLUTELY!

An interesting note, the same virus had the similar impact on my wife who had it first, but with much less severe or enduring symptoms.  My adult daughter from another household much younger had a much lighter case (our warning to drink plenty of water could have be a huge difference).  A neighbor one block away and unrelated also had the same problem, but again for a much shorter period.  Two individuals were thin, two slightly overweight, two were male and two female.  The neighbor did not participate in food of the family shifting the cause away from a household and foods of a common household.  All four had varying symptoms of gout in one joint or another right after a mild virus with a low grade temperature that started with a mild scratching in the throat and 2 weeks of general lethargy with a decline in eating and liquid intake.  When this was mentioned to the doctors I received a that’s nice type attitude.  Doctors in the mainstream have little time for anything and often do not have the interest to go one step further. 

The virus seems to be the impetus for the gout in four people and based on their health and reaction to the virus fared with varying degrees of gout.  Where it is not hard science when 4 people that interact socially land with the same virus; it can be assumed contagious, since one is not related it is not hereditary and with one under 30 it is not old age.  That each got what appears to be some degree of gout suggest the virus 1) dehydrates the body (I lost 14 pounds in 2 weeks), and 2) it may cause other conditions that precipitate gout such as partial and temporary renal failure.

Besides sharing my pain, I hope this article points out four things:

1. What gout is and how can it be identified
2. How one can successfully treat gout
3. The dangers of prescribed medicines for gout
4. While we are a collective set of human beings few of us fit the medical average

Whether you take your medicine or not is your choice, but you must remember you are the one stuck with the impact of what you do.  Medicines that cause you liver failure, kidney failure, hepatitis, blindness or male breasts are not the fault of the doctor.  After all you asked their opinion and according to the medical community they prescribed what the pharmaceuticals are pushing.  And the pharmaceuticals have all the statistics needed to demonstrate the veracity and validity of their claims.  Besides, if you are not sick, who needs doctors.  If you don’t have the recent virus, go set in the doctors waiting room for half an hour.

With lawsuits at every turn and hospitals strangling medical recommendations under bureaucratic standards no doctor will tell you to go home and eat cherries for instant relief of your gout.  Telling you to eat bananas, strawberries and vinegar to reduce the swelling is just plain silly, even if it does work.  Yet a hundred years ago that would have been the prescription by an experienced country doctor.  The pharmaceutical industry selling their tintures and cure alls may be no better than the traveling medicine show’s wagon pulling into town.  Maybe they are worse since the now have the ear of the medical community.  There are good doctors, but they are getting rarer as standards get tighter.  Younger doctors also lack the benefit of how it was once done with protiens, vitamens and nutrients found in common foods.  And there are times we will need a doctor’s care, just remember you are part of the decision process.  To live or die and the general health of your body are decisions you will have to live with… or not.  The decision is always yours.  Even if the decision is listening to the doctor, you are still making the decision.  Subjugating a decision is a decision.

As for the Hippocratic oath “never do harm to anyone”, that seems to go out the window with the first prescription.  For those interested here is a translation of the Hippocratic oath from a distance period of the Greeks.  The Hipprocratic oath is not used in current practices.  Where some parts are a little out of date here is one part that may need closer consideration, “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone.”

“I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.“ 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath

Leonardo Davinci in the 16th century provide this insight, “The best advice I can give about doctors is to stay as far away from them as possible.”  During that period a medical doctor attended about 1 and a half years of medical school prior to becoming a doctor.  Those that did not meet the strigent standards went on to become barbers and did blood letting.  The Blue, Red and White barber pole traditionally referred to the medical side of the trade. 

Maybe in this day and age avoiding doctors entirely could seem extreme.  There are still valid reasons where the wisdom of a doctor will prevail and their insight will promote decisions that are beyond our common intellect.  If we do not do the research and investigate, if we do not learn more about how we are made the fault is still ours when we blindly trust others.  The Internet has become a marvelous tool where books, research documents, and personal experiences can be found.  When blended with what we learn from traditional sources we are better equipped to ask questions and join in the decision process. 

RNA, DNA, cell structure and Hormone signaling are not beyond our intellect, they are outside our scope of education.  The remedy, buy some of the same books the doctors do and learn at least a little more about that beautiful machine the human body, yours.  Renal failure sounds so much fancier than kidney failure, but if a doctor says renal do you know what part they are talking about.  Just what are the blood works ups requested and what else might be asked for?  It is absolutely fascinating to learn just how complex a single cell of the body can be, far better than re-runs on the old television.

A popular show on TV called House reflects on the decisions made and the tests performed on the patients behalf.  Often the patients are cured, but only after devastating and life threatening experiments and tests that leave the body ravaged and spare parts strung across operating rooms.  Having survived the tests and cure they, in reality, would be ill prepared to assume the monumental debts.  Diagnoses is often clouded by what the doctors do not know or information the patient refuses to share both in the show and in reality.  In all fairness determining what is wrong on the inside without destroying the subject is not as easy at it seems.  Symptoms can be caused by more than one problem.  Some symptoms mask other problems and it seems we are each just a little different which compounds the diagnosis.

There are any number of tests that can be performed and all have a price tag the insurance company is less than willing to pay.  It may be not so much the doctors as it is the system in which they must function.  Given a different paradigm they may function more for the benefit of the patient and less for the hospitals and insurance companies they serve.