Gout Pal Interactive

Very interesting, Bethboy.

I note from your original post that you lost some weight and increased your exercise. This may have a significant contribution to your gout-free time.

That aside, celery seed extracts (in “Evaluation of anti-gout activity of some plant food extracts”) have been shown to have uric acid lowering properties. That study reports lower uric acid with celery leaves, celery seeds, rosemary, cinnamon and turmeric. Unfortunately it is a study of rats, and I can find no equivalent human research. Of all the extracts tested they note that “petroleum ether extract of celery seeds was the most promising.”

Celery seed extracts have also been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties, but products vary widely in effectiveness. Whitehouse and colleagues, in “Over the counter (OTC) oral remedies for arthritis and rheumatism: how effective are they?”, note that some have little effect, whereas others are as effective as ibuprofen, but without the associated gastric problems. Unfortunately, the copy of the report that I have found does not indicate which are the good guys.

Even without the gout flares, I would still recommend a uric acid test as part of your preventative health checks. This ensures that you are truly keeping gout at bay, and not merely masking the problem.

You can certainly get a uric acid home testing kit. You might see from other topics in the uric acid forum that not everyone gets great results from this, but I’m happy with it.

I sense that you are in the group that do not want your doctor turning you into a patient, and I can’t say I blame you. However, if you can resist their urges to test you for everything until they can find something that needs a pill (plus another for the side-effects), then you do have a perfect right to get annual checks for blood pressure, cholesterol etc. What you do with the numbers is up to you, but at least you’ve got them.

Ah, Huddersfield. Don’t suppose Johnny’s Nightclub is still going? (or should that be )