I think there is a genetic link to who gets gout and who doesn't. My dad used to suffer from it and he finally went to the doc and was prescribed Zyloprim. Seemed to work for him but when I first started to suffer from it, I resisted medication as a cure because I didn't want to take a pill every day for the rest of my life. As time progressed, I got worse and worse, to the point that my feet swelled so bad that skin flaked off when the swelling went down. I never took pain meds and found I could more or less control it with a very strict diet. Lots of Vit. C, cherries in every form, very little meat, no booze, no beans or cauliflower, or whole wheat bread. But it finally got to the point where even that wasn't helping much so I went to the doc. A prescription of Allopurinol, which is the generic of Zyloprim has worked very well for me and there are very few foods that I need to avoid. 20 years on, the Allopurinol has worked for me.