Pat: My husband is 62 years old and suffers from the most unbelievable gout, so much so that his whole foot swells. We've tried everything and he's watching his diet to a great extent and not drinking beer or anything like that.

Harry: That's very important indeed.

Pat: But he's just not getting better.

Harry: The approach to gout is firstly that you should avoid anything that triggers it off like alcohol and also very rich foods like liver and kidneys.

Pat: He doesn't have anything like that in his diet.

Harry: But the most important point is that this condition is usually related to the genes. It must be in his family, whether he knows it or not, and it's on the male side. He must have got it from his father or grandfather. Now there are two approaches to this, apart from avoiding rich foods and alcohol as I already mentioned and also keeping your weight down. The first of these medical approaches is that when you've got an acute attack, then you take an anti-inflammatory agent like Voltaren. After that has settled down and the acute attack is over and there is no more pain and swelling in the joints, then he must have a medicine that will keep the uric acid down for the rest of his life because this is a genetic condition caused by an excess of an acid called uric acid. So then you must take a medicine called Allopurinol, which will keep the uric acid down and therefore prevent further attacks occurring.

Pat: Will that be for the rest of his life?

Harry: He will almost certainly have to take that for the rest of his life.

Pat: All right. Thank you so much.