[Mark]

Hi Keith,

Thanks for your swift reply, apologies for not replying sooner.

In answer to your questions, even though I know they were questions for myself; I think the reason for the delay is three-fold – I don’t really want to take a pill a day for the rest of my life, I’m a little worried about flare-ups and I am worried about potential side effects.

I do partly expect to get flare-ups after taking allopurinol, however, I’m prepared for that if the long term effect is to lower the uric acid levels and hopefully reduce or eliminate future attacks.

As it turned out, I left it a few days, partly as I needed to do quite a bit of driving on the weekend (there’s a fair bit of psychological, prolonging the inevitable there as well I’m sure!) and started taking it at 100mg per day from today.

I have a blood test booked in for 2 1/2 weeks time, so will look forward to the results from then. How often would you recommend asking for blood tests – once per month? And/or have you tried any of these Uric Acid Test Kits – for instance; http://www.goutcare.co.uk/uric-acid-meter-kit.html or have any feedback on them?

Many thanks

[Author]

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