Shoulder Pain And Back Pain Treatment

We can all learn something new every day! And good doctors are constantly alert to learning from all of their patients. It takes a lot to surprise me after twenty years in medicine but - I hold my hand up - this is a new one!

I had never heard of cherry juice or fresh cherries being used to treat gout or for gout pain relief until I heard it recently from a patient (who had been told it by his pharmacist, who had heard it from a relative etc etc). Anyway - a quick search for the "treatment of gout" on google turned up one (rather ancient -1950) research paper and a whole stream of anecdotal reports about the positive effect of cherries and their juice. It seems that consuming about half a pound of fresh cherrys a day or half a litre of fresh cherry juice can significantly lessen the pain and swelling of gout.

I've never had gout and I hope you haven't either but I can tell you it's one of the most painful conditions known in medicine.

Our blood contains a salt called uric acid. It's there all the time in everyone but is normally fully dissolved in the way that sugar is fully disolved in a hot cup of tea. But ... if the tea cools down ... what happens to the sugar? It comes out of solution as little sharp edged crystals. Well, guess what - that's exactly what happens in an attack of gout pain.

A change in the blood chemistry allows the uric acid to crystalise out of solution and form little jaggy crystals (like bits of broken glass) in the joints. For some reason the first joint of the big toe is the most commonly affected - and the pain when walking is horrific. Quite literally "like walking on broken glass" as many of my patients describe it.

Anyhow - back to those cherries.

My patient swore that taking the cherry juice had made a big impact on his gout pain and had provided rapid gout pain relief. You might want to try this yourself if you have gout or you might want to recommend it to a friend or relative.I'm not clear whether tinned cherries can have the same effect.

The most commonly quoted explanation of the effect is that cherries contain flavonoid compounds that may lower uric acid and reduce inflammation. As I described above, uric acid is the body salt that triggers gout attacks.

I have found nothing published to suggest that taking regular cherry juice lessens the risk of you having an attack in the first place but if you suffer from gout regularly it may be worth a try. Cherry juice, cherry pie, ice cream with cherry sauce? Mmmm - sounds good to me!

Labels: arthritis, foot pain, gout, joint pain

Can Coffee Drinking Help Gout?

Gout is triggered by high uric acid levels in the blood. Gout is the commonest inflammatory arthritis in adult men and is becoming more common in women.

Scientists have long thought that high intake of coffee and tea can reduce uric acid levels in the blood and thus reduce the risk of a gout attack and a new study published in the June 2007 issue of Arthritis Care & Research seems to support this - for coffee drinkers at least. Even decaffeinated coffee might help if you are a gout pain sufferer.

The researchers found that coffee consumption is associated with lower uric acid levels but this appears to be due to components in coffee other than caffeine.

The results of the research showed that levels of uric acid in the blood significantly decreased with increasing coffee intake, but not with tea intake.

Interestingly, there was an association between decaffeinated coffee consumption and uric acid levels. These findings back up the idea that components of coffee other than caffeine contribute to the observed association between coffee intake and uric acid levels.

The scientists emphasise that they do not really know how the connection between coffee, gout and uric acid works but they believe that the chemicals in coffee are affecting insulin levels and also producing powerful antioxidant chemicals within our body.

Labels: arthritis, caffeine, gout, joint pain

Who gets gout

Who gets gout - there are lots of myths around. Gout has been called the arthritis of the rich and the disease of the kings. People often think of gout as a problem that afflicts boozy, overweight pleasure seekers. These are all myths about gout.

Australian world cup soccer star Harry Kewell developed gout during the world cup soccer championship and has helped to dispell some of the often heard fictions about a widely misunderstood disease

So who gets gout?
There are two types of people who get gout: those who inherit a gene for it, and those that get it from drinking too much alcohol and being overweight.

If it was gout that felled the star striker — or a combination of gout, bad blisters and a chronic groin injury — then it was most likely hereditary.

Read more about gout in an athlete

Labels: arthritis, gout, joint pain