If you suffer from gout, you know that during an acute attack you would be willing to try almost anything to relieve the pain. Walking becomes very difficult or impossible when the attacks occur in your feet, where most of them do. The normal flexing and moving of the joints of your feet suddenly becomes very difficult as well. There is some debate about the use of fish oil supplements for gout. If you do want to try fish oil as a pain reliever, ask your doctor his opinion first.
What Gout Is
Gout is a form of arthritis. Osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis both cause inflammation in your joints for different reasons, and the pain tends to affect you daily. Gout also results from inflammation but of a different sort. If your body does not dispose of uric acid, the end product of purines you ingest primarily from meat, the substance can build up in your joints and then turn to crystals. These sharp crystals cause a gout attack when they inflame your joints. You may suffer a gout attack for five to ten days, with the worst pain usually in the middle of that period.
Fish Oil Properties
Fish oil is classified as an omega-3-acid ethyl ester. It contains two primary types of omega-3s--docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, and eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA. The primary reason doctors recommend the use of fish oil supplements is that these omega-3s help to reduce your triglycerides, a part of cholesterol. Triglycerides, a type of fat, can deposit in your arterial walls and block the normal blood flow. This raises your blood pressure and can portend strokes or heart attacks. Fish oil can both reduce the triglycerides in your blood and help to reduce the blockages, known as plaque, from your blood vessels. In the medical journal Surgical Neurology, Joseph Charles Maroon and Jeffrey W. Bost report their study on the effects of fish oil supplements as an anti-inflammatory substance. Their study specifically looked at patients with back or neck pain, but they reported relief from inflammation pain when patients used omega-3 supplements.
Traditional Medicines
Doctors typically prescribe one or more of three types of medicines for their patients who suffer from gout. For gout attacks, you normally take a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, or NSAID, which reduces inflammation and thus decreases pain. For mild attacks you may use over-the-counter NSAIDs such as ibuprofen or naproxen sodium. For more severe attacks, you may need prescription indomethacin or another stronger pain reliever. The problem with these types of prescription NSAIDs is that they can cause irritation and even bleeding in your gastrointestinal tract. For these reasons, physicians usually try to prevent gout attacks with a daily regimen of medicines such as probenecid or allopurinol. Taken daily, these drugs help your kidneys to regularly rid your body of excess uric acid. Another drug, colchicine, works in both capacities. You can take a small does each day to prevent attacks and larger doses during an attack for relief.
The Controversy
While there is scientific evidence that fish oil supplements act as anti-inflammatory agents and may help reduce your gout attacks and associated pain, some fish contain high levels of purines. If your fish oil supplement includes ingredients from these kinds of fish, the anti-inflammatory properties of it may be nullified by the increase in purines and thus uric acid. However, Dr. James McKoy, a rheumatologist, states on the Arthritis Today website that as long as you use "pharmaceutical-grade molecularly distilled fish oil supplements," you will not get added purines. He indicates that this kind of fish oil supplement typically does not affect gout attacks negatively.
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