Hey all. With my declining kidneys from a hereditary kidney disease I developed gout not long ago. I was put on a low dose of Allopurinol back in October-ish and havent had and attack since (thank God). I did get hit with one of the side effects, tinnitus, which I had to a hardly noticeable level prior to the meds. On the meds though its gotten worse where its noticeable constantly unless there is at least talking level noise going on around me. Trying to sleep has been fun...

 

A few questions for anyone on Allopurinol

 

-Anyone get off Allopurinol and the tinnitus go away? I wouldnt mind it if I knew it would go away once off the meds (kidney transplant in the distant future).

 

-They are looking at switching me to Febuxostat which also has a potential side effect of tinnitus but I'm hoping for whatever reason the different med will react more favorably for me. If you did make the switch did tinnitus go away? 

 

Feel free to PM me since I know not everyone is as open with their personal stuff. I would love and appreciate to hear any input on similar situations though. 

fWIW… I’ve been on Allopurinol for a number of years, no idea how many. After a few on 100mg the doc doubled it. So it’s been at least 5 or 6 years at 200mg, never had tinnitus or any reoccurrence of the gout. I did however just talk to the doc last week during the yearly about cutting or stopping the Allopurinol, his idea. He seems to think the only side effect of stopping is the gout might return, which I’m going to try in the next couple weeks. That being the case it would make sense that you could try stopping and see what happens if indeed the only down side is the gout returns.

 

I would however suggest you discuss it with your Dr if you haven’t.

I tried Allopurinol for my gout with no side effects. It also didn’t stop the gout. I try to control my gout with hydration and diet and have generally been effective, but occasional flares I just have to ride out and hydrate. Gout is no joke - good luck

@padlin yea I'm only on 100mg and sticking to a mostly Mediterranean diet with red meat maybe 1-2 times every other week. No attacks since. From what I understand there's no need to "come down" from the med slowly so only thing you may be at risk at is a flare up. All of this is cleared with my doc though,  coming off it isn't an option currently. She gave me 3 options to either stay and deal with it,  try the Feb medication or a 3rd option that's out of the question because it puts my heart at risk. 

 

@VolFan I drink minimum 3L of water a day and I controlled the gout with just diet for about 8 months but even basically just eating salad and pasta I started getting really bad attacks and here we are. It's incredible the pain it can cause...I think only my kidney stone topped it. I'm not sure how they put you on Allopurinol but my doc put me on colchicine at the same time during start up for the first few months. She said when you are getting adjusted to the Allopurinol it can actually cause gout flare ups on its own and the colchicine prevents that. You eventually come off the colchicine and should have no issues with the Allopurinol.... might have been you situation and thought it didn't work? 

I think something may have been wrong at the start of my treatment - that would definitely explain the lack of effectiveness! It really is a pain like no other, and very unique once you identify it.