Thai food and gout

[Mamertian]

Hi!

 

I’m trying to find information about thai food and gout. Does anybody know any trustful source or experience about which products should be avoided?

 

My gout detector says that I should be careful with pla-ra and fish sauce, but any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[Andre0720]

Here is my experience on this subject. Starting with excerpts:

Rheumatoid arthritis and gout are two different types of arthritis. They may have some symptoms in common, but they have different causes and require different treatment plans.

 

Some 3 or 4 years ago, I started to have pains in my joints, including my right big toe. Doctor visit, given some medication. Took that for a few days. And then I thought of finding what was causing tat in me, what I was eating that caused that.

So I thought about milk, then sugar. Sugar came out as a probable cause. So I went to all restaurants and asked if they had food with no sugar. It does not seem to exist, of if so, difficult to find in Thailand. All food is laced with refined sugar, or contains a bottled sauce from stores, that contains some 20% of refined sugar.

I asked many restaurants if they had food with no sugar. Then i realized that nobody reads what is inside the bottled sauces that they buy. One lady told me that there was no sugar in her Pad Thai. So I asked what was in the red sauce in her pad Thai. She answered 'Ketchup'. No kidding.

So I stopped eating Thai food, entirely. I do my own cooking.

No refined sugar in my apartment, and no bottled sauce, except for Kikkoman sauce, Sesame sauce.

 

All my pains disappeared quickly.

 

And I found that sugars from fruit is no problem.

 

 

"

7 Gout Symptoms You Might Be Ignoring

• Pain in your big toe. ...
• Pain in your knees, ankles, wrists, and/or elbows. .."

"

The top 10 foods and drinks that trigger gout are:

• Sugary drinks and sweets. ...
• High fructose corn syrup. ...
• Alcohol. ...
• Organ meats. ...
• Game meats. ...
• Certain seafood, including herring, scallops, mussels, codfish, tuna, trout and haddock.
• Red meats, including beef, lamb pork and bacon.
• Turkey."

So obviously, since the list is quite extensive, certainly that any food in excess will cause problems.

But notice the one on top of the list, Sugars.

If one eats Thai food, it is impossible to not eat the bad sugar, refined sugar, in excess.

[Lacessit]

11 minutes ago, Andre0720 said:

Here is my experience on this subject. Starting with excerpts:

Rheumatoid arthritis and gout are two different types of arthritis. They may have some symptoms in common, but they have different causes and require different treatment plans.

 

Some 3 or 4 years ago, I started to have pains in my joints, including my right big toe. Doctor visit, given some medication. Took that for a few days. And then I thought of finding what was causing tat in me, what I was eating that caused that.

So I thought about milk, then sugar. Sugar came out as a probable cause. So I went to all restaurants and asked if they had food with no sugar. It does not seem to exist, of if so, difficult to find in Thailand. All food is laced with refined sugar, or contains a bottled sauce from stores, that contains some 20% of refined sugar.

I asked many restaurants if they had food with no sugar. Then i realized that nobody reads what is inside the bottled sauces that they buy. One lady told me that there was no sugar in her Pad Thai. So I asked what was in the red sauce in her pad Thai. She answered 'Ketchup'. No kidding.

So I stopped eating Thai food, entirely. I do my own cooking.

No refined sugar in my apartment, and no bottled sauce, except for Kikkoman sauce, Sesame sauce.

 

All my pains disappeared quickly.

 

And I found that sugars from fruit is no problem.

 

 

"

7 Gout Symptoms You Might Be Ignoring

• Pain in your big toe. ...
• Pain in your knees, ankles, wrists, and/or elbows. .."

"

The top 10 foods and drinks that trigger gout are:

• Sugary drinks and sweets. ...
• High fructose corn syrup. ...
• Alcohol. ...
• Organ meats. ...
• Game meats. ...
• Certain seafood, including herring, scallops, mussels, codfish, tuna, trout and haddock.
• Red meats, including beef, lamb pork and bacon.
• Turkey."

So obviously, since the list is quite extensive, certainly that any food in excess will cause problems.

But notice the one on top of the list, Sugars.

If one eats Thai food, it is impossible to not eat the bad sugar, refined sugar, in excess.

It is virtually impossible in Thailand to find packaged food that does not have sugar in it, with the exception of a few yoghurts.

Like you, I do a lot of my own cooking. It's the only way to keep the damn stuff out.

 

A small correction. Fruit contains fructose, which is a sugar that is not metabolized by insulin, and does not show up on the fasting blood and hBA1C tests. It is processed by the liver instead, and can cause fatty liver disease.

It's best to eat fruits low in fructose, such as apples, guava and berries. Bananas, pineapple, mango and lychees are too high in fructose/carbs.

[Mamertian]

Thank you! I was blaming the fish sauce and look what was hidding behind all food… ????

[moogradod]

3 hours ago, Andre0720 said:

..................................

If one eats Thai food, it is impossible to not eat the bad sugar, refined sugar, in excess.

Exactly. Although the emphasis must be on "in excess". I am a type 2 diabetic by the way.

 

Indeed very much of all food offerings in Thailand contain sugar. The taste of the average populace obviously longs for that for my relatives denote even food that is just neutral in sweetness as "sour". The standard Thai spice-board contains the four ingredients Chilly powder, fish souce, chilly in vinegar (or just vinegar) and sugar (sometimes grinded peanuts).

 

Even yoghurt without sugar is hard to find. Some contain sugar surrogates - which makes them awfully tasting regardless of use of stevia or chemical ingredients.

 

At least - after decades of waiting Perrier has launched a drink that has taste, but is not artificially sweetened. It comes in Peach, Lemon or Pink Grapefruit flavour and is availabel in small cans, medium (330ml) glass bottles and 0.5l plastic bottles. It is not sweet in taste, which suits my palate.

 

As an imported item it is not cheap. The lemon variety you may substitute with Sing Soda and add a few drops of lemon (not lime), this comes then close to the Perrier.

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by moogradod

[worgeordie]

I used to get gout about once a year when I first came here,

but have not had it for at least 15 years , one thing the Dr.

said was don't eat chicken skin,and shrimps .

 

The Dr. used to give me an injection and it was gone in a day,

I also used to take Zyloric tablets to control the Uric acid.

 

regards Worgeordie

[Seppius]

6 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

I used to get gout about once a year when I first came here,

but have not had it for at least 15 years , one thing the Dr.

said was don't eat chicken skin,and shrimps .

 

The Dr. used to give me an injection and it was gone in a day,

I also used to take Zyloric tablets to control the Uric acid.

 

regards Worgeordie

Zyloric tabs contain Allopurinol which I take for gout (300mg daily). For me a lot of Thai spicy food will start an attack.

 

Look out for stress, this can also not help

[steven100]

Zyloric tabs are fine or any similar that contain Allopurinol 300mg .

I suffered from severe gout regularly and did have an attack a month ago in my right foot and ankle and the pain seemed more excruciating than previous, it was horrendous all night ....

 

I found that drinking water constantly during the day reduced the build up of Uric acid and lessened the chance of a gout attack.  Stay away from ground beef/steak/ if possible and red wine, although a once off every now and then seems fine. 

 

Also try and buy the Uralyt-U drink to monitor pH in your Uric acid as it prevents crystals from forming.

 

[tomazbodner]

Gout is caused by accumulation of uric acid. Sometimes change of diet helps, many times it doesn't.

 

Sometimes it causes kidney stones only, sometimes gout, sometimes both.

 

There is a medicine to treat gout but you need to be very careful with it and clear it with your urologist as it could have severe side effects. Other than foul smelling urine and very fine sand flushing out. It is Benzbromarone ***, in Thailand sold under Benarone brand. It intercepts purine from food so it doesn't turn into uric acid, and gives your body a chance to clear it out.

 

From point of how to treat gout attack, NSADs like Nurofen Zavance (spiced up Ibuprofen) could be very effective, but do not take it if you are controlling blood pressure with Valsartan. It can lead to renal failure (kidney failure).

 

[EDIT: Removing diet part as post above from Andre covered all and more]

 

*** note, Benzbromarone is banned in EU due to side effects. I am not advertizing it, just saying it worked very well for me. Got mine from hospital first, but later from Diamond pharmacy opposite Siriraj hospital entrance. It is actually quite cheap (unless bought from hospital pharmacy).

Edited August 4, 2022 by tomazbodner
removed section

[tomazbodner]

1 hour ago, steven100 said:

Zyloric tabs are fine or any similar that contain Allopurinol 300mg .

I suffered from severe gout regularly and did have an attack a month ago in my right foot and ankle and the pain seemed more excruciating than previous, it was horrendous all night ....

 

I found that drinking water constantly during the day reduced the build up of Uric acid and lessened the chance of a gout attack.  Stay away from ground beef/steak/ if possible and red wine, although a once off every now and then seems fine. 

 

Also try and buy the Uralyt-U drink to monitor pH in your Uric acid as it prevents crystals from forming.

 

Agree. If you have a mix of uric acid + calcium stones, Uralyt is a better choice (happens if you have high uric acid but drink mineral water full of calcium... they get coated, and they are very hard to melt off), but possibly more convenient to carry around, are Pocitrin Tab pills. But note that Pocitrin will give you stomach cramps much worse than Uralyt. On the other hand Uralyt is mixed with water so you need to get used to the taste of it. Although compared to 20 years ago, it tastes much less disgusting now. Not quite pleasant, but no longer gross.