Colchicine and Indomethacin for immediate relief. Colchicine will tear up your stomach like nothing else, the "atomic sh its" are real and unpleasant. Indomethacin isn't the stuff that's hard on the stomach, that's Colchicine. Indomethacin has never bothered me a bit. Allopurinol is a long term preventative and works great, but it shouldn't be taken when someone is having a gout attack. It works by purging the body of uric acid and that requires the body's excess uric acid to be removed from tissue, enter the bloodstream, and be filtered out by the kidneys then pissed out. That extra uric acid in the bloodstream will make an ongoing gout attack worse, not better. That's the reason why when someone is started on Allopurinol they're given gradually increasing doses. You don't want to start out with a full strength dose, it'll suddenly increase the uric acid in the blood and trigger a gout attack. You've got to slowly get your body to purge it so your kidneys have time to remove it.
Black cherry juice is a traditional home remedy and can help some. Like most home remedies though it's a poor substitute for modern medicines. You can chug black cherry juice for weeks and maybe feel a little better, or get the right medicines and be feeling better by the day's end. I know which one I'll pick.
