What Causes Gout?

What causes Gout and what can you do for it?

• My mother has gout in her foot, mostly her toes. What are the foods if any that they say to avoid? She says beef and high acid foods. What can help?

• Answer:

  Gout is caused by uric acid turning into crystals kind of like needles and stabbing into an area generally somewhere on the foot, but it once hit me in the hand. I suffer from it and I do mean suffer. I had an attack just 2 days ago on both sides of my ankle and it felt like someone took a hammer to both ankles and whacked away..it is excruciating and I read it gets worst with time. I had another attack about six weeks ago. Both of these came since I became a vegan (no animal food including eggs and dairy) In fact, one when I was on a juice fast consuming nothing but produce, so I am not so sure about that diet thing they tell you.. It is the only thing I find is so pressing and painful that I must take a medical drug I do not take the daily one as someone took me it reaked havoc with them and I am afraid to take daily drugs, but when I get an attack I do take Colchicin..usually 3 of them and it goes away. Sometimes I take an anti- inflammatory drug. I am afraid to take this NSAIDs drug as my mother died and suffered on kidney dialysis which increases one's risk of heart attacks greatly. She had no prior heart problems and then 9 heart attacks in a year. Her doctor told her her kidneys were destroyed from taking motrin an antiinflamatory for arthritis. I am scared to take it as just diagnosed with diabetes which can destroy the kidneys too but the pain is so intense, I have to. Some say sour cherry juice and even all kinds of cherries/cherry juices help. My chiropractor said this helped one of his patients but it did not help me but then I did not do it consistently. One could take turmeric organic tincture as an herbal anti-inflammatory, However, I recently found out that there is hope of helping my diabetes, gout and other things. I am working towards this as it is hard to change one's lifestyle having became a vegan giving up all junk and fast foods and daily exercising etc and including juicing and a lot of produce and raw foods but am not there yet. I do see my blood sugar numbers dropping and my weight on the changes I have made so far. here is where your mom should go and read all the testimonies under gout http://www.hacres.com/testimonies/testimonies.asp?strterm1=&strterm2=Gout&submit1=Search the book is called the hallelujah diet.. one could also substitute I think gabriel's cousens diet in his lean green crusine book as it also had successes on disease and is similar., yet somewhat different. Ask her to take the challenge and try it for 6 weeks and see what happens.