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

Content

• Intense Big Toe Pain From Gout: A Classic Symptom Of An Attack
• Foods To Avoid Or Limit
• Can Gout Be Prevented?
• Hyperuricemia High Uric Acid
• Gout And Your Vision Health
• Chronic Gout
• Trusted Medical Answers

Hypertension, cardiovascular, and obesity are risk factors for gout. In many cases, the exact cause of gout or hyperuricemia is unknown. Doctors believe it may be due to a combination of hereditary, hormonal, or dietary factors. In some cases, drug therapy or certain medical conditions may also cause gout symptoms. The urate crystals deposit in tissues when there’s too much uric acid in the blood.

Intense Big Toe Pain From Gout: A Classic Symptom Of An Attack

Purines occur in the body naturally and cannot be avoided; however, you can limit your intake of purines through proper dietary choices. Certain foods are also high in purines, which can lead to high uric acid levels or cause an overproduction of uric acid. There are a number of reasons why a person doesn’t excrete enough uric acid through urine. Certain genetic defects and illnesses can hinder uric acid elimination and cause the body to reabsorb too much uric acid.

THIS TOOL DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and should not be relied on to make decisions about your health. Never ignore professional medical advice in seeking treatment because of something you have read on the WebMD Site. If you think you may have a medical emergency, immediately call your doctor or dial 911. The major difference between gout and pseudogout is that the joints are irritated by calcium pyrophosphate crystals rather than urate crystals.

Foods To Avoid Or Limit

Further investigation is needed to determine the cause of the overproduction or decreased elimination of uric acid. If gout is not treated, uric acid deposits called "tophi" (pronounced TOE-fye) can form over time as lumps under the skin. Gout that is not treated can also damage the affected joints. A prescription medicine called colchicine helps reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation.

These include high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney disease, and some types of anemias. For people who have uric acid kidney stones or gout, foods that are high in purine content should be avoided, including organ meats , sardines and anchovies. Alcohol also should be avoided because it slows down the removal of uric acid from the body. Fasting, rapid weight loss, stress, and strenuous exercise all raise uric acid levels. High uric acid levels in the urine are seen with gout, multiple myeloma, metastatic cancer, leukemia, and a diet high in purines.

Can Gout Be Prevented?

It may also occur as a side effect of chemotherapy or radiation therapy, because of a hereditary abnormality, or due to obesity. As gout progresses, you may not be able to move your joints normally. The affected joint or joints become swollen, tender, warm and red.

Is coffee bad for gout?

There's very little evidence that suggests coffee intake causes gout or increases the risk of a gout flare-up. Although the majority of evidence is in favor of drinking coffee to reduce gout risk, there's still room to continue to expand the research.

Vasodilatation and increased vascular permeability is also important to allow extravasation of macrophages into the synovial fluid to clear the inflammatory area (Fig. 3) . Another enzymatic abnormality that causes gout in the young is the superactivity of phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate synthetase. The syndrome has two clinical forms, a severe early onset form in children and a mild late juvenile or early adult onset form. Clinical picture includes neurological abnormalities such as sensorineural hearing loss, hypotonia and ataxia in the severe form. The mild form manifests as uric acid renal stones and arthritis. However, these enzymatic disorders constitute only less than 10% of cases of overproduction of urates .

Hyperuricemia High Uric Acid

Because medications and other diseases can cause gout, you will be asked to provide a medical history and a medication list. Another pain reliever commonly used to reduce gout pain is colchicine. It is most effective when taken within the first 12 hours of symptoms, according to NIAMS. Once the flare-up subsides, the doctor may prescribe low, daily doses of colchicine to ward off future attacks. Gout and pseudogout closely resemble each other, but they each have very different characteristics. "The amount of pain suffered by a patient with pseudogout is usually less than is experienced by a gout patient," Edwards said.

As time goes on, gout attacks may also become more frequent. Although many people have their first gout attack in one of their big toes, gout attacks can also happen in other joints. You and your health care professional can decide what might be best to treat your gout attacks and help prevent future gout attacks. Be sure to share your thoughts with your health care professional. Your health care professional may also suggest other ways to help prevent future gout attacks, such as those listed below.

If needed, fluid from the joint can be removed with a needle to confirm the gout diagnosis. Blood tests may be ordered to check for infection as well to check your uric acid levels. Xanthine oxidase inhibitors - Such as allopurinol, will prevent gout. However, it may cause your symptoms of gout to be worse if it is taken during an episode of painful joint inflammation. This includes over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin or diuretics. Some of the gout medications will not work properly if you are taking other drugs at the same time.

Gout And Your Vision Health

Correctly diagnosing gout and differentiating it from other inflammatory arthritic conditions is critical to successful and timely treatment, as well as subsequent prevention. As the clincal features of acute gout and a septic joint can be very similar, arthrocentesis is important to rule out infection by sending the joint fluid for culture in these circumstances. An acute gout attack will generally reach its peak hours after onset, and then will slowly begin to resolve even without treatment.

Although typically a painless structure, the formation of tophi can cause an acute inflammatory response within the tissue. As the tophi become enlarged they may cause deformities, and there is potential for them to protrude through the skin and exude a white chalky substance . Some of the most common sites of enlarged tophi are the forearm, ear, knee and foot. When you have a gout attack, pain relief is your first goal. It’s important to call your doctor even if the pain has stopped.