How drinking water can help you beat gout

Glass of water illustrating how you can reduce the risk of gout attacks and gout flare-ups by reducing the concentration of uric acid and the risk of monosodium urate crystal formation.

Drinking lots of water helps reduce the risk of gout attacks.

Drinking lots of water. When you have a gout attack and am willing to try anything, including amputation, you will willingly chug gallons if it helps even a little. But does it? And why?

DRINK MORE THAN A GALLON A DAY

Drinking water helps during a gout attack for the same reason as it helps to prevent attacks. You do not have to chug a gallon of water as a preventive measure, but you should try to drink at a big glass of water (approximately 300 cc, or one third of a liter) every 20 minutes. This spreads out the consumption and helps your body use the water. Drinking too much water may be bad for you, so try to drink about six liters a day (a gallon is about four liters, so this comes down to one and a half gallon per day).

HELP FLUSH THE KIDNEYS

The water helps against gout in two ways: It helps your kidneys flush out the excess uric acid, and it helps increase the volume of your blood. This may sound drastic but it is actually not a problem since we are only talking about a proportionally small increase, less than 20%. But increasing the volume from 4.5 liters to 5.5 liters (about 1.2 gallons) will decrease the concentration of uric acid in your blood, which means it becomes more difficult for uric acid crystals to form and less probable that you get a gout attack.

LOWER YOUR CONCENTRATION

During the attack it works the same way. Decreasing the concentration of uric acid in your blood means new crystals will not form and more importantly during an attack, the lower concentration means existing crystals will start to dissolve. And the extra water helps fush them out. Rather than being a lod on your kidneys, it helps them if you keep well hydrated. So does keeping your salt intake down. Otherwise, it can help make attacks last longer since you retain water in your body rather than flush it out.

HOW TO DRINK LOTS OF WATER

Some people have problems drinking lots of water. And while soft drinks are forbidden and diet sodas ate doubtful, there are some tricks you can try to stay hydrated.
Try either drinking a glass every 20 minutes, drink after you went to the toilet, a glass before, during, and after every meal, a glass with every cup of coffee or tea you have - as long as it becomes a routine you will not notice. Tea in itself counts, as does coffee, although as a diuretic it might make you go to the toilet more often than you had planned.
To make the water more appetizing, add in something unsweetened (lemon, apple cider vinegar, cherry juice). Or slice cucumber into the water and let it soak, or add herbs and let them soak. Mint gives the water a completely different flavor.
Or try changing one meal for soup and making it thin so you have to eat a lot. Milk also has a proven effect against uric acid, that may be another option (in the clinical trial they drank 8 big glasses per day). So there are many ways of staying hydrated.

Never believe medical advice from a software engineer. Always read the disclaimer and talk to your doctor. Links on this site may be affiliate links, which helps me keep it available since I get a small amount when you buy anything, and provides you with great products. Please note that advertisements are not automatically endorsed. Only when I explicitly say so.
If you want to know more about what you can do about your gout and how to make sure you never have a flareup again, try reading my little book "Gout Simply Explained" which chronicles the research I did and what I found out. It is quite simple, really.