Joan Wilen and Lydia Wilen
Joan Wilen and Lydia Wilen are folk-remedy experts and home tipsters based in New York City. They have spent decades collecting “cures from the cupboard” and are authors of several books, including Secret Food Cures.
Gout is a very specific form of arthritis when uric acid in the blood crystallizes and builds up in joints. The pain it causes can be quite severe, and attacks usually occur at night. Although, it’s commonly thought of as affecting a toe or toes, it can also occur in the side of the foot, an ankle, and occasionally in the lower back. Gout is very much tied to diet and a gout treatment diet is very effective in preventing the crystallization uric acid and flushing it out. Relieving the pain and other symptoms of gout while helping to prevent—or at least mitigate—future attacks.
The following natural remedies for gout come from Secret Food Cures by Joan and Lydia Wilen and offers effective tips for a gout treatment diet and other lifestyle changes to relieve the condition.
Isn’t it amazing how much pain you can have from one toe? Gout comes on suddenly, but you know it when you have it. Caused by a build-up of uric acid in the joints, it usually settles in a person’s big toe. Gout is extremely painful, but also extremely treatable. Be sure to see a doctor for an evaluation and diagnosis. Severe gout conditions can be very serious.
If you have gout, you probably know it’s time to change your diet. Once known as “the disease of kings,” it’s often brought on by a steady diet of rich foods like red meat, wine, cream sauces and sweets. The closer you stick to vegetarian cuisine, the faster the gout will go. You can eat some fish and lean chicken now and then but stay away from red meat for a while. Also, avoid alcohol and eliminate sugar and white flour from your diet. You may start feeling so good that you’ll never want to go back to consuming those things.
The one remedy that everyone seems to agree is very effective! Cherries! Eat them fresh or frozen. Also, drink cherry juice daily. You can get pure juice (concentrate) at health food stores.
• Soak your gouty foot in comfrey tea.
• A Russian remedy is raw garlic—two cloves a day. The best way to take raw garlic is to mince the cloves, put them in water (better yet, in cherry juice) and drink them down. Chewing is not necessary. The garlic will not linger on your breath. It may repeat on you— but then, so does a salami sandwich, and this is a lot healthier.
NOTE: Eat garlic with a few sprigs of pars – ley to decrease repeating and smelly breath.
• Eating strawberries and very little else for a few days is said to be a possible cure for gout. Strawberries are a powerful alkalizer and contain calcium, iron and an ingredient known as salicin, which soothes inflammatory conditions. It worked so well for 18th-century botanist Carl Linnaeus (who developed the modern system for classifying plants) that he referred to strawberries as “a blessing of the gods.
