Friends with gout should not be unfamiliar with sodium bicarbonate. When the pain is acute, doctors often prescribe sodium bicarbonate tablets for oral administration. Therefore, some [old gout] patients think that sodium bicarbonate tablets can treat gout and belong to uric acid-lowering drugs. In addition, people often hear that gout patients should drink more soda water.
So, can sodium bicarbonate tablets treat gout? Can you reduce uric acid? Is soda water and sodium bicarbonate linked to what? Is soda water when sodium bicarbonate tablets are dissolved in water?
Not all soda water contains sodium bicarbonate
Soda water sold on the market is divided into natural soda water and synthetic soda water.
Natural soda water contains many ingredients, including sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate is commonly known as [baking soda]. Special attention should be paid to the fact that not all soda water sold outside contains sodium bicarbonate, and some may only contain carbonic acid (water and carbon dioxide) and other additives.
Many patients are concerned about this problem: Is dissolving sodium bicarbonate tablets in water the soda water sold outside? In fact, it is not. We often refer to soda water as beverages, some of which are also added with sweeteners or spices. The prescription prescribed by clinicians is that everyone should take sodium bicarbonate tablets directly and drink enough water at the same time.
Drinking soda water has its advantages and disadvantages.
Compared with other beverages, soda water is definitely more suitable for gout patients.
However, not everyone likes the taste of soda water. Moreover, soda water cannot replace the therapeutic effect of sodium bicarbonate tablets, so there is no need to choose soda water specially.
Soda water containing sodium bicarbonate is a double-edged sword, because although it is weakly alkaline and helps to increase the pH value of urine, it contains a lot of sodium salt, which may increase the burden on the kidney and increase hypertension.
Since many gout patients are often accompanied by other chronic basic diseases, such as hypertension, coronary heart disease, etc., if people with complications choose to drink soda water, they must pay attention to an appropriate amount, usually about 500 ~ 800 milliliters per day. The specific situation needs to vary from person to person, and at the same time, the daily salt intake should be appropriately reduced.
The function of sodium bicarbonate is to alkalize the urine
As we all know, one of the hazards of excessive uric acid in the body is the easy formation of uric acid stones, and the two main factors promoting the formation of uric acid stones are:
Uric acid salt concentration is too high;
Acidic urine (urine is obviously acidic).
Among them, the effect of acidic urine is more important (unfortunately, the urine of most gout patients is acidic). The solubility of uric acid in urine is about 1.2 mmol/L when the urine pH is 7.0. When the urine pH was 5.0, it decreased to 0.09 mmol/L.
Thus, the more acidic urine is, the less uric acid will be excreted through urine.
When urine pH = 6.75, more than 90% of the total uric acid in urine exists in the form of soluble urate and is discharged out of the body, thus minimizing the risk of uric acid precipitation and stone formation.
Seeing this, you should understand that whether it is sodium bicarbonate or soda water containing sodium bicarbonate, their function is actually to alkalize urine, thus helping uric acid to be excreted from urine. However, sodium bicarbonate is not a real uric acid lowering drug.
Urine is not as alkaline as possible.
Since urine alkalinity can help uric acid excretion, is the alkalinity the better?
The answer is no. Because the higher the pH value of urine (i.e. The more alkaline) may increase the risk of calcium-related stones, long-term administration of sodium bicarbonate does increase the risk of urinary calculi.
In addition, because it contains sodium ions, long-term administration will increase the sodium load in the body and cause hypertension, edema, etc. Therefore, it is suggested that patients must be followed up regularly and taken under the guidance of doctors.
How to eat sodium bicarbonate tablets?
The dosage of sodium bicarbonate is 1 ~ 4 tablets, 3 times a day (according to different specifications, the total amount is generally about 3g per day, the specific dosage still needs to consult a professional doctor.), take it before meals is better, which is beneficial to absorption. Attention should also be paid to drinking more water during taking.
How long does sodium bicarbonate take?
Clinically, the target value of urine pH for alkalization drugs should be between 6.1 and 7.0. In other words, it is better to monitor the pH value of urine when taking sodium bicarbonate to evaluate the degree of urine alkalization.
Want to know in detail how different pH values of urine represent what respectively? You can quit the article and reply directly to [urine] to get it.
As for how long sodium bicarbonate needs to be taken, it is recommended to strictly [follow the doctor’s advice] and not to buy and take it by oneself because of [a long illness and a doctor].