Living with gout may also mean that you are living with the fact that you should be maintaining all your medications to be able to prevent or alleviate the gout attacks. This isn’t just a pain in the joints, yet also a pain in the pockets. Due to this particular fact, those who suffer from gout commonly choose to be much wiser in desiring higher efficiency at a very low cost. This is now where the questions like, “What is the comparison between progout and zyloprim?” starts.
This article wishes to give a comparison in between the two aforementioned medications for gout. Who will win? No one, I guess. Well, let’s just know what really is the answer. Read on to know it all.
Progout and Zyloprim: Twin Brothers
Setting progout and zyloprim in opposition is just like asking “When will the chocolate taste get better? If has already changed its shape?” In a simple manner, they are just the same! They are more of like twins.
The reason for them being twins? Well, this is because they both share the very same generic name, the allopurinol, meaning, they share the very same mechanism of action. The progout and zyloprim are just like some sort of nickname for allopurinol.
In general, the medications under the different brand names that have the same generic name are the same in chemical composition. This is in order to make the bioavailability of the medicine reliable or consistent. The sole difference may be the chemical fillers, coloring, flavoring, and preservatives. Therefore, the difference will just be minor and will just include the properties, which will almost have zero effects to the efficiency of the medicine, just like the color, taste, shape, and the shelf life.
Allopurinol
Since the comparison between progout and zyloprim is merely comparing medicine A with medicine A, we’ll be discussing the connections of progout and zyloprim, which is mostly their mechanism as allopurinol.
The allopurinol is a medication that’s used in reducing the uric acid, thus recommended to patients who are suffering from gout and hyperuricemia. Furthermore, it’s also prescribed to those patients who go through chemotherapy. Allopurinol actually falls under the category of drugs popular as the xanthine oxidase inhibitor.
The xanthine oxidase inhibitor may sound as if it came from the quantum physics text book, but this is no science at all. To be able to understand the mechanism of this certain medicine, let’s first discuss the pathway of the uric acid metabolism.
Firstly, it isn’t the uric acid that’s metabolized. It’s the purine that’ll be metabolized into the uric acid.
On the other hand, the purine is a large molecule, which will not be filtered out by the kidneys to be expelled from the body. It must first be broken down into uric acid that can be excreted. Furthermore, the purine may also seem to be a faulty chunk of molecule since it cannot be excreted, but it isn’t. In the actual fact, it isn’t flushed out by the body as the body needs it, just as some other macromolecules.
The allopurinol is a xanthine oxidase inhibitor, meaning, it inhibits the xanthine oxidase. This just means that it may disturb the purine so that it’ll not be broken down into uric acid! Therefore, the uric acid will not upsurge for some time. Purine may not be expelled without being altered into uric acid. Sooner or later it’ll have to be predisposed, and it’ll be an inundation of uric acid for you! Certainly, a match between progout and zyloprim will be a tie because no one is really fit to win.
Progout & Zyloprim: Side-Effects!
As what we’ve stated earlier, both the progout and zyloprim are almost of the same mechanism. Therefore, if they have the same mechanisms, it just means that they also share the same side effects too. The severe gout attack is just one of the many side effects. The allopurinol has already been known to cause austere side effects just like eosinophilia and low red blood cell count, both resulting from the damage to the bone marrow. It may also cause nephritis, hepatitis, and severe skin conditions known as the Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis and Steven-Johnson Syndrome.
