Re: Hair loss & blood pressure.

 What are the typical side effects of drugs that lower uric acid levels? Could the harm be outweighed by the reduction of pain?

Allopurinol is the only drug I know of for high uric acid.  Other gout drugs are often just anti-inflammatories such as colchicine and indocin  Here are links to side effects and warnings:

http://www.rxlist.com/zyloprim-drug.htm

http://www.rxlist.com/zyloprim-drug.htm

Herbs for high uric acid are definitely safer.

My mom was not sleeping or doing much of anything physically when she "ballooned up."

Her arm and wrist swelling has come back, closer to the point that it was about two weeks ago. Do you have any ideas about this cycle of arm/wrist swelling, easing up, and swelling again?

Could be a couple of things.  One could be the irritation from the uric acid leading to inflammation and swelling.  Or something is pinching the nerves that control blood vessels in the arm.  This would cause the blood vessels to over dilate making them more permeable, and thus leak fluids in to the surrounding tissues.

EDIT: I'm not sure if my brother has already told you this, but my mom has been experiencing something strange over the past few weeks. At times, her thighs, or rather, the part of her body from her ribs down to just above her knees (on both sides) lose feeling. She is sometimes unable to get up because of her inability to control these muscles, it seems. She also experiences strange feelings like crawling sensations on her thighs and a general feeling of discomfort (she says that she cannot quite classify this as "pain"). Finally, she is sometimes unable to make a fist with either hand, or curl her fingers fully, or sometimes move her fingers at all. What do you think this could be?

No, this was not mentioned.

Sounds like neuropathy, which can have various causes.  High uric acid is one.   Demyelination from chronic high blood sugar, some infections and some nutritional deficiencies are also causes.