Gout/Arthritis and other inflammatory conditions

[Brent701 438]

I have dealt with gout off and on since I was 17. My body has responded very well to Indomethacin once properly dosed. Colcrys doesnt provide any relief at all but I get all the side effects. Fortunately the past few years the gout attacks are much less frequent. Unfortunately I still experience fairly frequent other inflammatory conditions.

The past 10 days I had had pretty bad joint pain in my index finger at the knuckle. Since I had the sleeve and NSAID's are no longer an option what am I supposed to do? Tylenol does not provide much relief as an anti inflammatory.

[RickM 1,747]

Have you talked to your surgeon about this (as opposed to the printed handouts they give you)? The sleeve is more tolerant of NSAIDs than the RNY (where they are really bad news) but often practices lump the two procedures together in their diet/supplement/medication protocols, though they are both quite different. If you talk to the surgeon directly about your specific problem, you may well get a different answer than what is given as general advice in their booklets. In the DS world (that's a sleeve plus intestinal rerouting) the ability to use NSAIDs has long been one of its selling points over the bypass, and the surgeons in that side of the bariatric world are well used to working with them (we were permitted their use as soon post op as narcotic pain relievers were no longer appropriate.)

That said, this is something that your surgeon should be in the loop on, rather than just going it alone. They are serious meds that can cause problems even for normal, non-WLS folks, so there should be some MD oversight on their use, but usually occasional short term use, as for an attack, is tolerable, as opposed to consistent use for something like chronic arthritis.

You do want to be careful with Tylenol as the toxicity levels are not that much higher than the therapeutic levels shown on the labels - that can be a problem when people up the dosage because it doesn't work that well.

[Brent701 438]

Thanks I have my 2 month followup tomorrow but i wanted to see others experiences.