Gout Treatments

Gout is a fairly common form of arthritis with significant pain and inflammation in joints. Traditional medicine has no cure for gout, but many standard gout treatments are prescribed and are mostly effective. Natural treatments for gout and home remedies for gout are plentiful since the disease has a several thousand year documented history of afflicting humans. Many of the treatments involve lifestyle and general health changes in addition to various creams or compounds.

Inflammation of tissues around the joint is the primary cause of pain for gout suffers, so modern medicine focuses on reducing the swelling and irritation. The first line of defense is anti-inflammatory drugs without a steroid component. Nearly all people are familiar with over-the-counter types of these drugs such as ibuprofen, naproxen, and others. These easily available but low strength drugs can treat gout symptoms, but often the inflammation is severe enough to require prescription doses. Several high strength anti-inflammatories are commonly prescribed for the symptoms such as indomethacin. These drugs have undesirable potential side effects mostly involving the stomach area such as ulcer risk and stomach bleeding.

During acute attacks of gout, the next drug prescribed may be colchicine. This drug is very powerful and will effectively control the gout symptoms, but the powerful side effects make long term use inadvisable. This drug has sort of a race between its ability to treat the symptoms quickly and the capability of the person to withstand the side effects such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

The third line of treatment, often undertaken when the non-steroidal anti-inflammatories or colchicines prove ineffective, is corticosteroids. These specialized hormones have very powerful anti-inflammatory properties and provide very quick relief to patients in many cases. Prednisone is the most common steroidal treatment for gout but has many side-effects and potential health hazards. An alternative line of traditional medicines used for gout treatment targets the uric acid content of the blood to prevent reoccurrence over the long term

All of the drugs listed have side effects, so there are several generally recognized methods to reduce your gout risk or the severity and frequency of attacks. Losing weight and eating a healthy diet are two general measures that benefit gout patients as well as general health. Hyperuricemia is common in overweight people thus greatly increasing the risk of gout. A healthy diet is important for the weight maintenance, but also to avoid or limit foods high in purine, which breaks down in the body to uric acid. High protein diets often lead to high uric acid levels. Drinking lots of water and fluids without alcohol is beneficial for reducing uric acid levels.

Home remedies for gout are readily available mostly from people claiming relief from gout based on their own experiences. Most of the remedies use herbs or natural products effective against inflammation and pain in general in a special blend. Other natural compounds are often included to strengthen the kidney and liver functions to aid elimination of uric acid from the body.

Gout is a well understood form of arthritis and the symptoms are documented in many medical articles and texts. Gout symptoms are very similar to other forms of arthritis and joint problems such as infection. The diagnosis for gout requires identifying the correct symptoms and then searching further to determine if the causes of gout are evident. This often requires drawing fluid from around the affected joints for microscopic analysis.

A precursor symptom to gout development is often the condition of hyperuricemia. This condition provides an indication of elevated uric acid levels in the blood. Excess uric acid is the cause of gout attacks, when the acid crystallizes and gathers near a joint area. The crystals irritate the surrounding tissue severely and cause the gout attack. Hyperuricemia by itself can be harmless to the body but is a prime indicator of greatly increased risk of gout.

The irritation of the joint tissue causes normal defensive swelling action from the body area involved. Fluid forms around the source of the irritation resulting in joint areas appearing twice their normal size or more. The appearance of the tissue is often bright red and looks almost like a burn from the outside. The inflammation will cause reduced mobility in that joint, if any movement is possible at all. The swelled flesh will have a very warm or hot feel when touched.

The irritation of the joint results in pain as well as inflammation. The pain can be minor, but most often is described as excruciating or severe. The pain will usually be debilitating for most sufferers and greatly restrict any desires to move the affect joint in any way. Even the slightest pressure, such as a light sheet or blanket, on the inflamed area results in significant discomfort at best. The area of the gout attack will require near immobilization during most attacks.

Gout symptoms have some indicators relating to time. Gout attacks usually manifest themselves first in the night, while a person is resting or asleep. The reduced blood flow helps the uric acid crystals to gather in one joint area as sleep progresses. There are many gout patients who report waking abruptly from a deep sleep to a "hot poker" feeling in the affected joint. Once the patient awakes, the pain usually continues at a high level and prevents or greatly reduces any further sleep. Another time facet of gout is the attacks last only about a week or two even if not treated. And there may be separations of weeks to even years before another attack occurs.

Location of the affected joint is another indicator of potential gout versus other diseases. Gout most often affects the big toe area initially or alternatively the feet, knees or fingers. Gout can affect other joints, but it usually starts in these joints. Gout can form uric acid collections under the skin creating chalky looking lumps, called tophi, near the joints and on the tops of the ears.

Gout is caused by an imbalance of uric acid in the body and diet can play a significant role to help or hurt. There are several foods to avoid with gout and other edibles that will help your body process the uric acid effectively. An additional concern when discussing diet and gout is weight maintenance. Overweight people tend to naturally have greater uric acid concentrations in their blood, which can lead to gout.

It is necessary to understand how uric acid is processed in the body before really considering your diet effectively. Purines are a substance in human tissues the body processes into uric acid and other products. Normally the amount of uric acid created is balanced by the amount eliminated through kidney functions. When there is more tissue than normal, as in overweight people, the breakdown of the tissue can create more uric acid than the kidneys are able to process. The excess uric acid goes into the blood and can eventually crystallize to develop gout.

To aid in gout prevention, most people recommend reducing your intake of purine rich foods. It seems obvious that ingesting extra purine into a body could result in more uric acid. There is little clinical evidence to support this directly, but many doctors still recommend avoiding purine foods. Many of these foods are high protein and low carbohydrate items.

This is not a complete list, but some of the high purine foods are bodily organs (hearts, brains, kidneys, gravy and livers), dried beans, dried peas, anchovies, sardines, herring, mackerel, and mushrooms. Meat from wild game such as deer and bear is likely to be high in purines. In general, the basic plan is to limit your consumption of seafood and meats, especially shellfish and meat products derived from organs.

Many people state they have a diet for gout to possibly even cure the disease. Medical professionals have almost no evidence that diet alone will significantly treat or cure gout. However they all agree that proper hydration with water is essential to great kidney functioning and elimination of uric acid. The efficiency of the kidney reduces directly in proportion to the amount of hydration in the body. Once again the axiom for health here is to drink lots of water.

A popular food to avoid is alcohol in whatever form (beer, wine, liquor) it takes, as it reduces the kidney functions. Limiting or eliminating alcohol is almost universal when seeking advice on diets for gout. Coffee however, has shown tendencies to reduce the uric acid in some people. The effect of coffee in this manner is not fully understood.

A positive note on gout diets concerns eating more low-fat dairy and complex carbohydrate foods that are already listed to promote good heart and body health. Whole grains, fruits and vegetables are readily available and recommended for prevention of gout. If your body is in great general health, the balance for uric acid is likely to be satisfactory as well.