Gout is more than a pain in the foot. It may be a problem that is about to "get you".
Gout is a painful problem and a risk factor for rapidly progressive heart disease. It is twice as common now as it was 20 years ago. What should you know about gout? I have tried to cover it here. What do you want to know? Tell me! I have a place for comments and two polls to take. If you have a site of your own, leave an appropriate comment and a link to your site.
What is Gout?
Gout is a disease state that is associated with aging, obesity and the accompanying problem of metabolic syndrome. Some other reasons for its prevalence are increased consumption of alcohol products, surviving heart attacks or congestive heart failure or organ transplantation longer, limitations on our ability to treat gout successfully, end stage renal disease, and dietary changes of modern life.
Gout can be acute with one or two acutely painful, tender, red, and swollen joints. It can be chronic with multiple manifestations including joint pain, arthritis, bursitis, tendonitis, kidney stones, or nodules in the skin and cartilage called tophi.
Below is information about the processes as we understand them and resources for understanding what to do about gout.
Gout can be acute with one or two acutely painful, tender, red, and swollen joints. It can be chronic with multiple manifestations including joint pain, arthritis, bursitis, tendonitis, kidney stones, or nodules in the skin and cartilage called tophi.
Below is information about the processes as we understand them and resources for understanding what to do about gout.
Obesity and Over weight are associated with Gout
Gout and Obestiy are both heart disease risk factors
If you are above your ideal body weight or your BMI - height to weight ratio - is too big, you need to reduce your amount of excess body fat.
Think about allowing me to help you through the poser of the internet.
Think about allowing me to help you through the poser of the internet.
- Recipe to Look Better Naked
- Look better, be healthier and join a support group. Sign up for Recipe to Look Better Naked.
Click on the above link and sign up in the far right column. Look forward to seeing you on Thursday evenings from 8:30-9:30 PM eastern time.
Read the testimonials on my blog Get the Skinney.
This Resident Physician is talking about gout.
He isn't fun but he is factual.
The name Resident came from the physician in training living in the hospital. This Doctor looks tired like most residents.
He is talking about the disease gout.
He is talking about the disease gout.
Gout Therapy
If you have suffered with it, what worked to help you?
Tell us what you do to prevent it and how your symptoms and gout have been treated.
Loading poll. Please Wait...
Uric acid
What it does, how it is formed, why we need it.
Uric acid is produced by metabolizing purines, a type of protien, and by the degradation of DNA. Other mammals have an enzyme called uricase that degrades uric acid into a harmless compound plus hydrogen peroxide (HP). HP is a bad thing for our cells, so we don't metabolize uric acid, we simply eliminate it through the kidney.Uric acid, in the absence of disease, is one of the most important chemicals in our blood. It is one of our most potent antioxidants. It scavenges free radicals which are harmful by-products of using oxygen to maintain our life.
Free radicals like HP and others are quite harmful and cause all sorts of damage to our cells and our DNA. Uric acid mops these up in a complex way that protects us as long as our blood has the correct pH ( amount of acid) and all our systems function properly.
When a person has a problem like obesity or one of the others noted above, then uric acid will accumulate and that accumulation or the processes that cause it are associated with disease. It would seem that high uric acid is a marker of yet unidentified processes. One, too much insulin in the blood has been identified.
Those processes are associated with a shortened life span and problems during the remaing life of that individual.
Pathology of a topus of gout.
A tophus is a deposit of uric acid into the soft tissue.
The tophus or pleural tophi are there because of longstanding high uric acid levels in the blood. This high uric acid level is called gout or hyperuricemia.
Medications for Gout
What should you expect if you have gout?
The therapy for acute gout is aimed at reducing pain, and joint inflammation. The therapy for chronic gout is aimed at preventing acute gout and to improve where possible, the reason for the chronic condition.
- 90% of all people with gout are under-excreters. They produce a normal amount of uric acid but the kidney can not get rid of it quickly enough. Probenecid is the medication for under excreters that have otherwise normally functioning kidneys, do not have kidney stones, and are not on daily aspirin.
- The 10% that over-produce uric acid need allopurinol. Allopurinol is also for those with renal insufficiency, chronic aspirin therapy, renal stones and those that do not respond to probenecid.
- For the first couple of acute flares causing a red, hot, tender, swollen joint, neither allopurinol or probenecid is needed. Those people can be treated with non-steroidal antiflammatory medications like Ibuprofen, or Prednisone or a steroid injection into the joint, or the drug colchicine. A person that has had gout in one joint has a 90% chance of developing chronic gout within 10 years.
- Other medications used for chronic gout are Fenofibrate, Atorvastatin, and Losartan. They are intended for other primary problems, but lower uric acid levels as a beneficial side-effect.
- Acute gout is usually assumed but can only be confirmed by aspirating fluid from an affected joint and examining it under a microscope for uric acid crystals. To determine the status of over-producer vs. under-excreter an analysis of a 24hour urine collection is necessary. Tophi, collections of uric acid in skin etc can be biopsied and analyzed by a pathologist to confrim the diagnosis.
Books about gout.
No one has the complete answer. We do not know how to cure gout but we know alot about some of the conditions. Most people eat too much, drink too much alcohol, are over-fat and under-exercised. Our behavior is in the control of each of us. After all, the only things we really can control is our actions and our attitudes. I have selected these books as potential helps in understanding gout and taking contol of your diet and exercise routine.
Gout Hater's Cookbook I
One of three cookbooks by the same authors. One of the secrets to controlling gout is to reduce purine intake. This will help you cook with less purines in the diet.
Amazon Price: $12.20 (as of 12/30/2009) 
The Official Patient's Sourcebook on Gout: A Revised and Updated Directory for the Internet Age
Amazon Price: $28.95 (as of 12/30/2009)
Getting Rid of Gout
Amazon Price: $19.61 (as of 12/30/2009)
Gout: The 'At Your Fingertips Guide'
Amazon Price: $32.69 (as of 12/30/2009)
Coping With Gout: Overcoming Common Problems (Overcoming Common Problems)
Amazon Price: (as of 12/30/2009)
How did you find this lense?
To make it more accessable I need your help
Everyone finds what they are looking for in many different ways. It could be through a search on Google, or by searching Squidoo, or maybe a friend told you. How did you find this site?
Loading poll. Please Wait...
I need your feedback!
How could I improve the information here?
Leave me a message about what you thought about the information available here. Also, Please take the time to rate us.
submit
Get the Skinney
The RSS feed from my health blog.
I try to do indepth information about single health problems on squidoo. On Get the Skinney I provide short posts on recent health information and a way for you to ask questions and leave comments. Especially if you are one of our patients, ask and I'll do my best to answer.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byLinks to resources on gout.
If you want to know more.
These are links I have discovered and trust the advice and information on them as of today. If I find more valuable information, I will link it here.
- Medline Plus - Gout
- From the National Institutes of Health, information about gout.
- Arthritis Foundation
- What is Gout?
- Med-Page Today
- A connection between men with gout and heart disease.
- BBC Health News
- Gout is an early sign of heart disease.
- Health Encyclopedia
- Articles about gout.
- Cherrypharm
- A source for cherry juice from tart cherries. It has been suggested it could be helpful in gout.
- Nubella
- Cherry juice from tart cherries linked to faster recovery from exercise and may help with arthritis and gout. How much is needed isn't known.
- PubMed Central-Uric Acid as an antioxidant
- 20 years ago we had evidence about the beneficial properties of Uric Acid.
- eMedicine
- This a link to a page about gout medications. It is good useful information that is clinically relavant.
by BruceBair
Bruce L Bair is a Physician Assistant. He is a graduate of the Duke University PA program 1978. Currently he is part of the health care te...
(more)
