Alpurinol for Downs Son with Gout

[Dan Roberts]

My 29 yr old son, Danny, has had a couple of Gout flareups over the last 3 yrs, but since Nov 2018, he has had 4 of them. His Doctor prescribed colchicine back in Nov and suggested we go on the Alpurinol as a preventative once he got over the flare-up. We decided to try diet+cherry tart vitamins first, and that seemed to work for about a month, when he got another flare-up. So, then, once he was back to normal, we tried the Alpurinol. He had another flare-up the next day.

Questions:
1) Any reason to think people with Down Syndrome should/shouldn’t be taking Alpurinol?
2) Are they more likely to have Gout?

BTW, I have Gout occasionally, too. I’ve been able to avoid flares by losing weight and diet, plus the vitamins. This obviously isnt enough for my son, who by the way, is not overweight.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

THANKS
Dan

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Alpurinol = Allopurinol

[nobody]

I don’t know anything about Down Syndrome and gout.
Obviously you want to be especially careful with potentially dangerous drugs such as allopurinol, especially if your son is not able to give reliable feedback on any side effects he might experience. But I don’t know anything specific which would make allopurinol unadvisable. Frankly, I would be more concerned about what colchicine could do to someone with Down syndrome if they were to take it for too long.

But I can tell you this: you can’t judge whether the steps you took to prevent gout were working or not based on whether or not attacks occurred the next day or even the next month. Indeed, effective treatment often triggers attacks during the initial phase. In some cases it can take years of treatment for the attacks to stop. Since your son has only had gout for a few years, there is reason to hope effective treatment might cure his gout in 6 months or even less. But in a single month? That’s not likely.
Besides rare and expensive modern imaging technology, the best way we have to guide treatment over a reasonable timeframe (weeks to months) is blood tests. The value you want to look at is the amount of uric acid in the blood. I would recommend you look at your own test results as well as your son’s because, if you have gout, it can develop without causing flares for a while and you might end up being sorry you didn’t take more aggressive steps to prevent your gout from festering. If you posted test results here, we could help you interpret them.
Also, the dietary information you used may be wrong. There is a lot of misinformation out there. Not that it matters much: drugs are easier and work much better.

[wikkydoo .]

My sister has gout and Downs as well. She does not take anything for it. I can say the same thing the other poster said:

It is important to note as mentioned that almost anyone that gets on allopurinol will immediately have a gout attack after because the medication is flushing the UA and that will cause it to accumulate in joints at first, so that is completely normal.

I also agree you should perhaps see a rheumatologist that specializes in gout first before your son takes it long term. If anyone has the best medical advice it would likely be that person.

I have gout and nobody else in my family does except my sister. I tell my dad all the time to adjust her eating habits as they are pretty bad, but she isn’t one to take kindly to not having a fast food burger. She also hates the taste of water so always has to be drinking something with flavor. I’m sure you know how the stubborness works there. But the more you can make them adhere to a better diet is probably the best initial route to go and see how that helps. The one benefit is most likely alcohol is not part of the diet and that’s a primary culprit for most people, so even limiting some meat and soft drinks here and there could really make a big difference. The only problem with all this, is the results will be slower to realize. I would recommend getting a blood test initially to see UA levels, try 3 months of a new diet even if flare ups happen, and then do another UA test to see if the UA level dropped any whatsoever. If it did even a little bit, do it another 3 months and see how the progress goes. If you can get your son to change his diet to more water intake and less meat, etc. then perhaps in a year your problems are manageable drug-free.

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