Gout Gouty Arthritis Risk Factors, Diagnosis And Treatment

Content

• Intense Pain That Strikes In The Middle Of The Night
• Treating A Gout Attack
• Gout And Heart Disease
• Uric Acid Test

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. It is important to contact a doctor as soon as possible if there are any signs of gout or tophi. Gout is highly treatable, but in order to address it you have to know that you have it — and the symptoms of gout aren’t always obvious.

Does soaking in hot water help gout?

Soaking in cold water is most often recommended and considered most effective. Ice packs may also work. Soaking in hot water is typically only recommended when inflammation isn't as intense. Alternating hot and cold applications may also be helpful.

Uric acid can deposit in the soft tissues, especially around joints, and cause nodules known as tophi, which can be large and unsightly. You have several attacks during the same year or your attacks are quite severe. Your provider may inject the inflamed joint with steroids to relieve the pain. Pain is often severe, described as throbbing, crushing, or excruciating. Please see the Medication Guide and Prescribing Information for more information.

Intense Pain That Strikes In The Middle Of The Night

There is no cure for gout, but it can be controlled quite well with medication. Proper treatment can help you entirely avoid attacks and long-term joint damage. Patients who are overweight and have high blood pressure can also be at risk for gout.

Gout comes fromgutta, Latin for drop, a reference to the belief that it was caused by a drop-by-drop accumulation of humors in the joints. This old disease is becoming more common, but gout can be easily treated and then prevented — with the right care. Being overweight and drinking too much alcohol can increase your risk for gout. Gout is more common in men than in women and hits men at a younger age.

Treating A Gout Attack

Gout attacks often happen in the big toe, but can affect any of your body’s joints like your elbows, knees, hands, or ankles. Gout is extremely painful and sometimes hard to control. Untreated gout may cause deposits of urate crystals to form under the skin in nodules called tophi (TOE-fie). Tophi can develop in several areas, such as your fingers, hands, feet, elbows or Achilles tendons along the backs of your ankles. Tophi usually aren't painful, but they can become swollen and tender during gout attacks. Having a high uric acid level, as gout patients do, can be an early indication for cancers that develop in skin tissues and the linings of internal organs.

Untreated gout can cause deposits of urate crystals under your skin . These feel like hard nodules and can become painful and inflamed during gout attacks. As tophi build up in joints, they can cause deformities and chronic pain, limit mobility, and can eventually destroy your joints entirely. The tophi may also partially erode through your skin and ooze a white chalky substance.

Lowering the uric acid to less than 6 mg/dL is needed to prevent deposits of uric acid. If you have visible tophi, the uric acid should be lower than 5 mg/dL. A medical doctor diagnoses gout by assessing your symptoms and the results of your physical examination, X-rays, and lab tests. Gout can only be diagnosed during a flare when a joint is hot, swollen, and painful and when a lab test finds uric acid crystals in the affected joint.

In patients with renal insufficiency, the dosing frequency may have to be decreased to once daily or every other day. Intra-articular long-acting corticosteroids are particularly useful in patients with a monoarticular flare to help reduce the systemic effects of oral steroids. Ensuring that the joint is not infected before injecting intra-articular corticosteroids is particularly important. Limit NSAID use in elderly patients, because of the potential for adverse central nervous system effects.

How Gout Affects Your Mood And Behavior

When the levels of uric acid in your blood are too high, it is called hyperuricemia. In severe cases, a condition known as acute uric acid nephropathy may develop, leading to kidney impairment and a rapid reduction in renal function. People with underlying kidney dysfunction are at greatest risk. Some people with kidney disease, stomach ulcers and other health problems are unable to take NSAIDs.

Tophaceous gout occurs when uric acid crystals form masses of white growths that develop around the joints and tissues that gout has affected. This stage occurs when the urate crystals that have been deposited suddenly cause acute inflammation and intense pain. This sudden attack is referred to as a “flare” and will normally subside within 3 to 10 days. Flares can sometimes be triggered by stressful events, alcohol and drugs, as well as cold weather.

Uric Acid Test

Yet many people with hyperuricemia never develop gout, and even when they do, they often have had high levels of uric acid in their blood for years without any symptoms. People with hyperuricemia with no symptoms might be coached to make lifestyle changes — losing weight would often top the list — but hyperuricemia by itself is usually not treated. Lesinurad reduces blood uric acid levels by preventing uric acid absorption in the kidneys.