Treating Gout

Did you know that cherries are only one of the many natural remedies for gout? And did you know that unlike conventional medicine, herbal remedies for gout come without side effects?

Do be aware that a natural cure for gout is not the same as alternative treatments to cure kidney ailments: the latter are most likely simple diuretics that will cause your body to retain uric acid and could trigger a gout attack.

Herbal remedies for gout

The most obvious alternative treatment for gout is Autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale) : the flower from which the well known conventional colchicine drug was derived. Herbal extracts as well as the drug do cause severe side effects like nausea, so you can only take them as long as you can stand the side effects and under guidance of a conventional or herbal doctor. Pregnant women are advice not to take Autumn crocus nor colchicine as a herbal remedy for gout as it could damage the development of the unborn baby.

Health food shops suggest nettle leaves (Urtica dioica) as a natural remedy for gout. Taken nettle leaves in the form of tablets (250 mg 3 times daily) or as tea is a proven uric acid treatment that improves your body’s excretion
of uric acid.

Other herbal remedies for gout that stimulate the elimination of uric acid through urine are:

• celery seed (Apium graveolens): drink an celery seeds tea infusion of 2 teaspoon in a cup of water, 3 times daily.
• gravel root (Eupatorium pu1pureum): drink a gravel root infusion of 2 teaspoon in a cup of water, 3 times daily.

Herbal treatment for gout pain relief

Devil’s Claw (Harpagophytum procumbens) has been used as a natural treatment for gout as well as for rheumatoid arthritis: it relieves joint pain and reduces uric acid levels. Therefore taking 750 mg Devil’s claw 3 times daily (containing 3% iridoid glycosides) can be helpful for treating gout pain relief and preventing gout.

A lesser known gout herbal remedy is found in pine-bark extracts and grape-seed extracts to reduce gout inflammation when taken 50 to 100 mg 3 to 3 times daily.

Turmeric is a natural cure for gout in Chinese and Indian – Ayurvedic – medicine. This gout herbal treatment is also used to cure other forms of arthritis and inflammations taken 250 – 500 mg 3 times a day.

Natural treatments for gout

The most documented natural treatment for gout are cherries: eating about 250 grams of fresh or canned cherries a day reduces uric acid levels and preventing attacks of gout due to the flavonoids that lower uric acid levels and give cherries their deep dark red-blue color.

When cherries aren’t readily available, try other dark red-blue berries as a natural cure for gout: blueberries, hawthorn berries, and bilberries. Some of these natural remedies for gout are available as gout supplements:

• take 80 mg bilberry extract with 25 % anthocyanidins 3 times daily.
• take 100 to 200 mg hawthorn berries extract with 1.8 vitexin-2 rhamnosides 2 or 3 times daily.

These flavonoids are so effective that you can now buy Quercetin – an extract of the saphora plant – and said to be the most active of all flavonoids. It inhibits the activation of mast cells and other inflammatory cells and it also prevents the action of xanthine oxidase, thus acting like allopurinol! Allopurinol acts by blocking the enzyme that converts the purine breakdown products hypoxanthine or xanthine to uric acid. However you cannot afford xanthine to accumulate, because it will cause kidney stones as well.

Other gout herbal remedies describe juniper berry as a diuretic herb that helps reduce uric acid when taken in capsules of 350 to 500 mg or as tea 2 times daily.

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) at high doses is known to help the excretion of uric acid as well, as long as it is not used together with prescribed uricosuric drugs – drugs that increase the excretion of uric acid in the urine .

Natural remedies for gout summarized

Natural remedies for gout have been around for centuries. Since mankind still exists, herbal gout treatments and any other common gout natural treatment must have worked as good or even better than conventional medications. Do know that apart from toxic gout natural remedy Autumn crocus (and its equally toxic counterpart found in the conventional pharmacy: colchicine) there are no, and I repeat: there are no documented side effects when using natural gout cures. When you take conventional allopurinol, you lower uric acid levels but increase xanthine levels that could cause kidney stones, how dangerous is that!

Although it is true that using a conventional gout treatment with drugs: you can exactly measure how much active ingredient you administer a gout patient. But each person reacts different, has a different body weight and different
exercise regime, so it is clear that modern medicine is no longer exact science as soon as the gout medication enters your body.

If you combine conventional gout remedies with a natural cure for gout (like taking both quercetin and allopurinol), do tell your doctor or herbal doctor up front, as some of the medications could interact for better or for worse. In the case of taking more Quercetin, you should take less allopurinol. This is a great benefit of natural treatments for gout because one side effect of allopurinol is causing kidney stones after reducing uric acid levels leads to a built up of xanthine.