I'm not usually replying into OT much, but this caught my attention.
I've had it for about 10 years now (I'm 53), runs in my family on my mom's side. We tried allupurinol for a while, it worked and then I went off it to try to handle it myself (sure, I can handle this!
). That worked for a couple years, but doc felt my level was too high, so after a recent attack (first in 2 years) they put me back on Allupurinol, but I had repeated attacks for 2 months one right after the other though the level had come down. So, I switched to the new med Uloric at low level (40mg). I'm now gout free for a couple of months, no side effects on the Uloric.
My docs said to stay on the meds as he wants me to avoid long term joint damage even if the attacks were infrequent.
Eric