What Is Gout? Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, And Prevention

Content

• When To See A Doctor
• The Rheumatologist's Role In The Treatment Of Gout
• Are There Home Remedies For Gout?
• How Uric Acid Crystals Form

Suggestions include gradual weight loss, avoidance of alcohol and reduced consumption of fructose‐containing drinks and foods high in purines. Some home remedies may help ease gout pain and reduce flares. Cherry products such as whole cherries or unsweetened cherry juice may reduce gout flares. A glass of skim milk daily may also help to lower uric acid over time. During an attack, rest the affected joint and apply ice packs or cold compresses to that spot.

Can you eat cheese if you have gout?

Chocolate can lower uric acid crystallization, according to a 2018 study . Lowering uric acid crystallization can be key to controlling your gout. Chocolate has polyphenols associated with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Inflammation reduction is helpful in providing relief from a gout attack.

Some drugs lower the uric acid level in your blood by increasing the amount of uric acid passed in your urine. They help dissolve tophi and prevent uric acid deposits in joints. The drugs commonly used to lower uric acid levels in gout are probenecid and sulfinpyrazone . Your doctor will adjust the amount of medication you take based on your blood uric acid level.

When To See A Doctor

But the most important fork in the road for gout sufferers is whether to start taking a drug that will lower their uric acid levels. Once people start taking these drugs, they usually must take them for the rest of their lives. Going on and off a uric acid–lowering medication can provoke gout attacks. Guidelines also recommend uric acid-lowering treatment if a person with gout also has kidney disease. Over time, increased uric acid levels in the blood may lead to deposits of urate crystals in and around the joints. These crystals can attract white blood cells, leading to severe, painful gout attacks and chronic arthritis.

There are many other conditions with symptoms similar to gout. Peeling and itching of the skin around the affected joint as the gout gets better. Actionsets are designed to help people take an active role in managing a health condition. H&E stain, medium power, of pseudogout with pale pink fibrocartilage in upper portion and purple crystals of calcium pyrophosphate in lower portion. H&E stain, high power, showing that most urate crystals have been dissolved but that some pale brown-gray crystals did survive processing.

The Rheumatologist's Role In The Treatment Of Gout

The medications listed below are used to treat or prevent tophi and to prevent future gout episodes. (In addition, allopurinol is used to prevent kidney stone formation.) However, these medications do not relieve the pain and inflammation of an acute attack. If you must take them, however, you'll probably have to do so for the rest of your life in order to prevent future problems. Long-standing elevated uric acid levels may result in other symptoms, including hard, painless deposits of uric acid crystals known as tophi. Extensive tophi may lead to chronic arthritis due to bone erosion.

Foods can also lead to overproduction of uric acid, such as meats and meat gravies and beer, which contain high levels of purines. It has been estimated that there may be as many as five million gout sufferers in the United States. Even more conservative estimates put this number at greater than two million . Population studies from both the Mayo Clinic and from Taiwan have shown significant increases in the prevalence of gout recently as compared to during the early 1990s.

Uric acid is a normal waste product in the blood resulting from the breakdown of certain foods. Uric acid usually passes through the kidneys and is eliminated from the body in urine. But it can build up in the blood and form painful, spiky crystals in your joints. This may happen if the body is making too much uric acid or if the kidneys are having a hard time filtering it out.

While the chronic use of colchicine can reduce the attacks of gout, it does not prevent the accumulation of uric acid that can lead to joint damage even without attacks of hot, swollen joints. Gout is an inflammatory disease where uric acid precipitates into crystals that deposit in various joints around the body, causing pain and inflammation. This video describes the pathophysiology, causes, symptoms, and treatment of gout. Patients with severe hyperuricemia should avoid foods with high purine content. Early recognition of acute gout attacks is critical, in that intervention with medication is much more effective earlier in the attack.

Usually, gout develops during middle age in men and after menopause in women. Gout is rare in younger people but is often more severe in people who develop the disorder before age 30. But, not everyone with a high uric acid level has gout. People will have no symptoms after a first gout attack.

Rheumatoid Arthritis And Gout: Whats The Difference?

Sometimes it can be hard to pinpoint which of these factors is behind your gout attacks. Keeping a diary is one way to track your diet, medications, and health to help identify the cause of your symptoms. If you have symptoms of gout, you can start with a visit to your primary care doctor.