I am Dr. Patrick Flanagan, and this is my Doctor Health Secrets newsletter.

I am a scientist with over 300 inventions related to health, longevity and medicine. This newsletter installment is about a painful condition called gout and what effects it has on your body.

Pain Is Not The Name of The Game

No one likes pain, no one likes discomfort, and no one likes having to tell their friends that they have an affliction known as gout. Gout is an acute form of arthritis that causes severe pain, discomfort, and swelling in the joints. People who suffer from this ailment report that their joints feel as if they are on fire or are being burned by acid. Not two feelings that I would be too excited to have. The most commonly affected area is the big toe, but other locations can also suffer, such as heels, ankles, hands, wrists, and elbows. The attacks that surround gout are usually sudden, and typically only last for about 5-10 days. The problem is, they can be reoccurring, so the fear and panic of not knowing is enough to cancel racket ball games worldwide.

"Gout is one of the most painful types of arthritis," says Hayes Wilson, M.D., chief of rheumatology at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. See, some people say that pain is something that can be lived with, but the people who say this are obviously not in that much pain.

Same Name, Different Pain

Gout may be a form of arthritis, but unlike the typical arthritis that most people are familiar with, gout is caused by high

levels of uric acid that cause urate crystals to settle in the tissues of the joints. Uric acid is formed in the body when waste products, mainly purine, are broken down. There are certain foods that contain high levels of purine, such as brains, liver, dried peas and beans, sardines, and anchovies. Typically, the kidneys can filter out any excess uric acid through urine, but there are times when there is too much uric acid in the blood for the kidneys to handle. This condition is known as hyperuricemia, and the urate crystals that are left behind in the synovial fluids of the joints are called excruciating pain, or gout.

Eating certain foods, as well as obesity, can lead to this increase in uric acid, which subsequently causes the formation and disbursement of uric crystals, but what exacerbates this process more than anything else is a lack of proper hydration. Pure, clean water facilitates the removal of both uric acid as well as urate crystals. Toxins build up in the body, and with the help of water, they can be easily removed. Water also acts as a natural lubricant, and those who have been personal victims of gout can surely attests to the fact that their joints could use some extra lubrication.

Pain, Pain, Go Away

Although there is no cure for gout, there are certain steps that can be taken to both alleviate pain as well as limit the frequency of the attacks.

Many people feel that when they drink water that the after effects are that of bloating and discomfort. Even more people complain that the amount of water that is "recommended" to maintain a healthy body is both painful to gulp down as well as time consuming. Most often, the water that people drink has an incredibly high surface tension. This means that the cells have a hard time actually absorbing the water that one does drink, which leads to both bloating and the need to drink a lot more water than is really necessary. A simple solution to this problem is to explore low surface tension water.

Though most tap and bottled water has high surface tenions, there are ways to make water more available to your body's cells.

Silica is a natural mineral and special forms of microcluster silica are small enough to change the absorption properties of water. Ask your vitamin store for it.