Welcome to Making Sense of Gout. Because this website is in a ‘blog’ format, I’ll be adding new articles and posts on an ongoing basis, so please keep checking back. If you add the website to your ‘favourites’ it’ll make things easier for you.
A wee bit about me…
First off… I’m not a doctor or healthcare professional. I’ve had no medical training. I am not a medical expert. That’s important for you to understand. So the content on this website is not intended to be, nor should you assume it is, nor use it as, a substitute for medical advice given by a fully qualified physician, healthcare provider, or, other suitably qualified medical professional. Read the full medical disclaimer here.
What I have, though, is a deal of expertise in researching into gout and, using what I learned, to figure out what I needed to do to manage my own condition. And I’ve done this so successfully that I’ve been free from gout flares for over 12 years now.
But, I used to get multiple attacks every year; so what changed?
The trigger was a conversation I had with my brother-in-law, all those years ago. In that life-changing conversation he told me he had just been diagnosed with gout and had done a little research into it.
Now here’s the thing… I had been living with gout for many years, long before he was first diagnosed with it, but I had never looked into it at all… I just took the pills and tried to avoid all the “high-purine” foods my doctors had told me to. I had basically accepted my “fate.”
Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to take my medicine and kept breaking my restricted diet. Looking back, I just wasn’t taking my condition seriously enough, and wasn’t disciplined or committed enough to see things through, even given the painful attacks…
Because, you see, once the gout flares were over I was just chancing my luck and hoping against hope they wouldn’t come back again. But of course they always did! And they were becoming more frequent, more painful, and longer-lasting.
But, luckily for me, I had that conversation with my brother-in-law…
And the headline stuff he had uncovered was alarming to say the least… All those years I hadn’t appreciated just how serious and debilitating the condition could be.
So, as a long-suffering gout victim, I set about doing my own in-depth research. And it became a real passion. So much so, I have written and published several hundred articles on the subject over the years.
And here’s what I’ve discovered: a gout-free life is possible and I’m living it.
A critical discovery was that it isn’t enough just to get rid of the symptoms of a gout attack; you have to prevent the recurring attacks that may seriously damage your health…
Numerous studies have linked gout to things like kidney disease, kidney failure, liver disease, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, and even a higher risk of early death.
I couldn’t go on the way I was, so I set about figuring out everything I needed to do to not only relieve the symptoms of a gout attack, but also to get my uric acid down to a healthy level and maintain it there, so preventing further attacks.
And I eventually “cracked the code” so to speak… As I said earlier, I haven’t had a gout flare for over 12 years now.
So I setup this website to help other gout sufferers.
Whether this is your first gout attack, or you’ve had multiple flare-ups, the content on here will, hopefully, set you on the road to being gout-free too.
Yours in health,
John Cielo