This is the approach I've taken for dealing with database nulls in go. I tried using NullString / NullTime / etc, but doing that required writing a custom JSON marshaller for every class with nullable data, which was a huge pain in the ass.
I don't know if you're using SQL or NoSQL databases, but if the latter (and your data is stored in JSON), you may find this package I wrote useful: https://www.github.com/ChimeraCoder/gojson
Instead of unmarshalling to map[string]interface{} and then doing awkward type assertions and checks, etc., this will generate structs that you can unmarshal into. That way, if the unmarshalling succeeds, you're guaranteed to know the types of all your values instead of checking them each time.
As for null values, it automatically uses a pointer in the struct definition if it finds a null value - writing that package was how I first learned about this entire topic, actually, which is why I mention it!
