Knowing how to prevent and relieve gout is the best start to managing the condition effectively.
All About Gout
What is gout pain like? Gout is an uncomfortable and painful condition that occurs due to increased
uric acid in your blood. Uric acid is a normal by-product of the metabolic process, made up of salts
and urates and excreted through urine.
High uric acid levels means an accumulation these salts that aren’t being flushed out the body.
Symptoms
The onset of gout is typically accompanied by a severe pain in the big toe, although it can also occur in other joints like the knee or ankle. High uric acid causes inflammation, which causes the pain and it most often happens during the night.
Diagnosis
If you suspect you have gout, see your doctor to review your medical history, do a physical exam and take blood to confirm a diagnosis. A medical examination assesses other possibilities like an infection.
Causes
Gout is common in men over 40 years, post-menopausal women, and in some cases, genetic.
However, there are external factors that you can control, which play their part in causing gout:
Specific medication e.g. aspirin and water pills;
Existing conditions e.g. rheumatoid arthritis;
Heavy alcohol consumption;
High purine diet e.g. organ meats and red meat;
Sugar sweetened soft drinks;
Even fruit juices and fruit increase the risk of gout in sufferers.
Different Gout Treatments
If you’re desperate to find out how to ease gout pain, experiment with the following treatments to
find the most effective relief for you.
Traditional Treatments
The first step is modifying your diet. Eliminate gout-causing foods and drinks and increase your intake nutrients that lower uric acid levels. Skimmed milk reduces the risk of attacks. Weight loss is also an effective strategy. Cherries appear to have a strongly protective effect, reducing the risk of attacks.
Only when advised by a doctor, medication can decrease the production of uric acid and reduce
inflammation.
Herbal Remedies
Good scientific studies of herbal remedies are lacking. There are suggestions that turmeric based
products and traditional chinese remedies may be helpful, but they have not been adequately studied to make sound recommendations.
Treating Gout At Home
This section on how to relieve gout pain is a very useful reference for those nights when you wake
up in agony. When you have a gout attack, you need to get the uric acid out of your system and treat
the pain.
Relax and keep your body calm.
Take proper medication.
For some people an over the counter anti inflammatory such as ibuprofen may be helpful but read the package insert carefully or discuss with the pharmacist.
Ice the affected area and elevate the joint.
If the pain is severe and doesn’t diminish, it’s recommended to seek medical advice.
Prevention
To know what helps ease gout pain is as beneficial as knowing how to prevent it. A healthy lifestyle,
balanced diet and regular exercise minimizes a variety of health problems but will help get rid of gout.
Gout is a disease that’s caused by high uric acid in the blood. This can be aggravated by kidney
disease or other medication. It may need review and you may need medication to control the uric acid level and prevent attacks.