I'd never heard of using just cherry juice, I just eat dark cherries. I keep a can of them in the pantry just in case, but actually prefer fresh ones. That said, the advice came from my mother-in-law's friend who has fought gout for a long time. I laughed at her when she told me what he did, but it works for me. Obviously, it's not going to work for everyone, but I figured it was worth the dollar to find out.

You should never take allopurinol while in the middle of a gout attack. It will exacerbate the problem. Indocin is a nsaid that relieves the inflamation caused by gout.

I've had that pain where you cannot tolerate the sheet on your foot. The dr. prescribed a treatment of colchicine at that time, and was pain free in about a day. That drug was presribed as a last resort though. He indicated it is a poison. Not sure how that works.

I had kidney stones a lot over several years, including visits to specialists, and two surgical procedures to have some removed. A few months after the last - I had severe pain in my foot. I was told I have something similar to Gout but not Gout (I can't pronounce it and have to look it up to spell it)

Basically, it is kind of like kidney stones - crystals form in foot causing severe pain. They don't know why. Studies have been done. Diet does not really affect it as far as they can tell. I keep well hydrated with water because of the kidney stone issue. They don't know why I kept getting them either. All tests come back normal. So - when I had the severe attack they put me on colchicine and allopurinol at the same time until pain subsided.

Now on just allopurinol. When they tried to wean me away from this - both kidney stones and other came back. So - I am now on maintenance allpurinol all the time. No more stones, no more foot pain. Still don't know whats/whys. Have had kidneys tested and more bloodwork than you can imagine.

I've also done the gout thing. Crippling pain is right. Oddly with me it didn't happen in the big toe, which is the popular place to get it. Mine happens in other joints within the foot and in the ankle.

I also had my knee scoped last year, thinking I had a torn meniscus. Turns out it was a gout-like thing with crystals forming in the knee joint. Not really painful, but caused a lot of swelling.