Is There Any Cure For Gout

Celery Or Celery Seeds

Celery is a food traditionally used to treat urinary issues. For gout, extract and seeds of the vegetable have become popular home remedies.

Experimental use is well-documented, though scientific research is scant. Its thought that celery may reduce inflammation.

Adequate celery amounts for treating gout arent documented. Try eating celery many times per day, especially raw celery sticks, juice, extract, or seeds.

If purchasing an extract or supplement, follow label directions closely.

What Are The Signs And Symptoms Of Gout

Gout flares start suddenly and can last days or weeks. These flares are followed by long periods of remissionweeks, months, or yearswithout symptoms before another flare begins. Gout usually occurs in only one joint at a time. It is often found in the big toe. Along with the big toe, joints that are commonly affected are the lesser toe joints, the ankle, and the knee.

Symptoms in the affected joint may include:

• Pain, usually intense

Medicines For Gout Attacks

The main goal of treatment during a gout attack is to decrease pain and swelling. Some medicines are safe for people with kidney disease, and some are not. Talk to your doctor about which medicines make the most sense for you to try.

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

NSAIDs are medicines that decrease pain and swelling. Some NSAIDs are available over-the-counter, like ibuprofen and naproxen sodium. Stronger NSAIDs like indomethacin and celecoxib must be prescribed by a doctor. Taking NSAIDs can lead to kidney disease over time or make kidney disease worse. NSAIDs may not be recommended when you have kidney disease even for the treatment of gout attacks.

Colchine

Colchine is a medicine that can relieve pain. Your doctor may recommend taking colchine during a gout attack, or low doses of colchine every day if you have chronic gout. Colchine may not be recommended for people with kidney disease. Talk to your doctor about whether colchine is right for you.

Corticosteroids, also known as steroids

Steroids are strong medicines used to decrease swelling and pain. Steroids are usually only given for gout if you cannot take NSAIDS or colchine. Steroids can be in the form of a pill or given as an injection. Talk to your doctor about whether steroids are safe for you.

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Hot And Cold Compresses

Switching between a hot compress for three minutes and a cold compress for 30 seconds on the affected area can help reduce pain and swelling that occurs during a gout attack.

In most people, a first acute gout attack comes without warning, and there arent any other symptoms of high uric acid. Prevention efforts for gout are focused on preventing future attacks or lessening their severity.

Foods Herbs And Supplements

The following have shown at least some promise for gout.

Coffee. According to the Mayo Clinic, theres evidence that drinking a moderate amount of coffee a day can lower gout risk.

Antioxidant-rich fruits. Dark-colored fruits like blackberries, blueberries, grapes, raspberries, and especially cherries can help keep uric acid under control.

Vitamin C. Consuming moderate amounts of vitamin C is also connected to lower uric acid levels. However, very large doses of the vitamin can actually raise uric acid levels.

Other supplements. There are also herbal supplements that have been found to effectively reduce inflammation including devils claw, bromelain, and turmeric. These havent been specifically studied for gout, but they may help with the swelling and pain associated with an attack.

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Managing A Gout Flare

Gout flares are unexpected and painful heres how to get a handle on them.

Few things in life are more painful than a gout flare, so if youre awakened in the wee hours by a joint that is tender, swollen, red and radiating heat, youll want to act fast. Heres what you can do when a gout flare starts to ease the pain of and reduce the risk of others.

Who Is Affected By Gout

Gout can affect anyone. It usually occurs earlier in men than women. It generally occurs after menopause in women. Men can be three times more likely than women to get it because they have higher levels of uric acid most of their lives. Women reach these uric acid levels after menopause.

People are more likely to get gout if they have:

• Obesity, or a lot of extra weight.

You are also more likely to develop gout if you:

• Consume a diet high in animal proteins
• Consume a significant amount of alcohol
• Are on water pills .

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Homeopathic Remedies For Gout

Homeopathic remedies are trusted by 81% of people worldwide. It can provide instant relief in gout pain, without any harm to the body. Take a look at some of the homeopathic remedies for gout pain.

1. Aconite : Aconite can be taken in order to get instant relief, when gout attack approaches. It works well for gout of the feet joints.

2. Colchicum : Colchicum is a very common homeopathic remedy for treating gout. If the gout is causing too much pain in the joints and is accompanied with redness, this remedy can be taken for relief.

3. Ledum : Ledum is a very useful remedy for treating gout. This is the best homeopathic remedy for gout in the foot. If the patient feels coldness in the affected area, this medicine can be given.

4. Belladonna : Belladonna can provide relief from all the symptoms of gout, like swelling, pain, inflammation, red or purplish skin.

Other homeopathic remedies can also be taken to get instant relief, such as Bryonia, Rhododendron, Calcarea fluorica, Berberis vulgaris, Urtica urens, Sulphur, Lycopodium, and Rhus toxicodendron.

Fourth Stage Chronic Tophaceous Gout

Finally, chronic tophaceous gout, or fourth-stage gout, occurs when gout is left untreated for too long. Most people do not get this far with proper medication and treatment. Often taking several years or more than a decade to develop fully, chronic tophaceous gout entails hard nodules called tophi developing in the joints and tissues surrounding the joints.

Over time, tophi can do permanent damage to the joints and is the most debilitating, causing skin ulcers to appear. This is extremely rare and only if left untreated for decades. Tophi also often appear in other parts of the body, such as the fingers and ears. Permanent kidney damage at this point is also a possibility.

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How Will Gout Affect Me

Attacks can vary from person to person. Some people only have an attack every few years, while others have attacks every few months.

Without medication attacks tend to happen more often and other joints can become affected.

Having high urate levels and gout for a long time can lead to other health problems, including:

• narrowing of the arteries – which can lead to an increased risk of stroke or heart attacks or other heart problems
• osteoarthritis, which occurs when the urate crystals and hard tophi cause joint damage.
• an increased risk of developing kidney disease or worsening of the condition if you already have it
• kidney stones
• an increased risk of some cancers, especially prostate cancer
• mental health problems, including depression
• underactive thyroid
• erectile dysfunction in men.

If you take medication to lower your urate levels, and have a healthy diet and lifestyle, most of the damage and complications caused by gout can be stopped.

Treatments for gout are incredibly successful. There are two main parts to treating gout, which are:

• treating the acute attack
• treatments to prevent future attacks.

Apple Cider Vinegar Lemon Juice And Turmeric Water

Apple cider vinegar for gout is an effective treatment, and when combined with lemon juice as well as turmeric, it becomes a perfect remedy for gout. They are useful in lowering your bloods uric acid level to a very significant level.

How does it work?

Apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, and turmeric all three have been seen to show good results in treating gout. Apple cider vinegar gives support to your kidney and help in balancing the uric acid level in your body. On the other hand, lemon juice combined with turmeric can effectively bring down the uric acid level.

How to use?

Take a glass of lukewarm water and squeeze some lemon juice into it along with 1-2 tablespoons turmeric powder and one tablespoon apple cider vinegar. Drink this water to get rid of high levels of uric acid in your blood.

How much to use?

Drinking a glass of apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, and turmeric water first thing in the morning daily can help you with your increased uric acid level and gout attack. Try this remedy regularly if you want some visible results.

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New Guidelines Suggest Doing More Of The Same The Problem Is That Many People Don’t

You never forget your first gout attack. The severe pain, swelling, and redness hits hard and fast. The initial attack often strikes your big toe’s large joint, but later ones might affect the foot or ankle. Other hot spots include the knees, hands, and wrists.

First-line treatment is quite effective and includes anti-inflammatory medications, ice therapy, and rest. A combination of diet and lifestyle changes and prescription drugs an approach called urate-lowering therapy, or ULT is typically recommended if attacks recur or become more severe.

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Which Joints Are Involved In Gouty Arthritis And Why Is It Most Common In The Foot

As with all other known types of arthritis, Gout has particular joints it tends to attack, and the foot is its most common location. Gout especially favors the bunion joint, known as the first metatarsophalangeal joint , but the ankle, midfoot and knee are also common locations, as is the bursa that overlies the elbow.

The bunion joint is the first joint involved in 75% of patients and is ultimately involved in over 90% of those with this condition. . It is thought that this joint is especially involved in gout because it is the joint that receives the highest pounds per square inch of pressure when walking or running.

Late in gout, if untreated, multiple joints can be involved, including the fingers and wrists. The shoulder joint is very rarely involved by gout and the same is true of the hip.

Figure 5: Location of Gout Attacks

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Treating A Gout Attack

As is true for many painful conditions, the first-line treatment for a gout attack is taking one of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs , such as diclofenac, ibuprofen, or indomethacin. For people who can’t take NSAIDs, a drug called colchicine is an alternative. It’s been used for centuries maybe even longer specifically for gout. The trouble with colchicine is its side effects, especially the copious diarrhea. If neither an NSAID nor colchicine is an option, then gout attacks can be treated with an oral corticosteroid, such as prednisone, or with corticosteroid injections into the joints.

Cherries And Cherry Juice

Cherries / concentrated cherry juice can help to relieve the inflammation and pain of a gout attack as well as reduce uric acid levels in the blood. So, not only can they relieve the painful symptoms fast, they can also help to prevent future gout flares.

Research suggests that 20 cherries per day is much the same as taking one NSAID and that cherries, taken in combination with traditional uric-acid reducing drugs, can significantly help to reduce the risk of gout flares.

Cherries are rich in anthocyanins which are known to have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. In studies, whole cherries and concentrated cherry juice were found to be equally effective so, where you cant get fresh cherries, concentrated cherry juice will do the job.

This is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, of all the natural gout remedies out there.

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Why Are Your Feet So Vulnerable To Gout

Your feet and, more precisely, your big toes are the most common area to be affected if you suffer with gout. Just why your feet are so vulnerable is unclear.

Some parties claim this is down to temperature urate crystals forming faster in cooler temperatures and your toes being among the coolest areas because they are furthest from the heart.

However, the truth is more complicated than that as Roddy concluded in an article for the Journal Of Foot And Ankle Research, the reasons for gout appearing in the toe first are

multi-factorial in origin and arises from the unique combination of the susceptibility of the joint to OA and local anatomical considerations of temperature, minor physical trauma and biomechanical stress

In other words, there are a number of reasons why gout will often attack your toe first.

The same is also true however of your heel its distance from your heart and its propensity to suffer trauma or stress make it another prime target.

How gout forms

Just as a quick reminder, gout is formed when your body produces more uric acid than it can get rid of via your kidneys. This condition is often referred to as hyperuricemia.

Having a high level of uric acid doesnt necessarily mean that youll suffer with gout, because its only when urate crystals are formed from the uric acid that gout begins.

Diagnosis Treatment And Prevention Of Gout

BARRY L. HAINER, MD ERIC MATHESON, MD and R. TRAVIS WILKES, MD, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina

Am Fam Physician. 2014 Dec 15 90:831-836.

• References

Gout is the most common inflammatory arthropathy, affecting more than 8 million Americans.1 Gout accounts for approximately 7 million ambulatory visits in the United States annually at a cost of nearly $1 billion.2 Risk factors include genetics, age, sex, and diet.2,3 These factors may contribute to a high serum uric acid level, which is currently defined as a value of at least 6.8 mg per dL .4,5

SORT: KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Oral corticosteroids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are equally effective in the treatment of acute gout.

A = consistent, good-quality patient-oriented evidence B = inconsistent or limited-quality patient-oriented evidence C = consensus, disease-oriented evidence, usual practice, expert opinion, or case series. For information about the SORT evidence rating system, go to .

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How Do Doctors Diagnose Gout

Joint aspiration

• This is the most important diagnostic test. It is the ultimate method of being certain of a diagnosis of gouty arthritis, as opposed to other causes such as an infection in the joint.
• A needle is inserted into the joint to withdraw a sample of fluid for testing.
• The fluid is examined under a microscope to see if there are gout crystals or signs of a bacterial infection present. Sometimes other crystals can be found in the joint fluid, such as calcium pyrophosphate, which is caused by an entirely different condition called pseudogout .
• Gouty arthritis is sometimes diagnosed based on the typical clinical presentation without a joint aspiration.

Blood tests

• A doctor may obtain a blood sample to look at cell counts, uric acid levels, kidney function, etc.
• Unfortunately, the level of uric acid in the blood cannot be reliably used to make a diagnosis of gout. It is normal in approximately 10% of people during an acute attack of gouty arthritis. Moreover, uric acid levels are elevated in 5%-8% of the general population, so the presence of an elevated level does not necessarily mean that gout is the cause of an inflamed joint. Interestingly, the uric acid is typically lowered during a flare of inflammatory gouty arthritis. Therefore, the optimal time to measure the uric acid is after a flare has resolved when acute inflammation is not present.

Radiographs

How Gout Treatment Prevents Disease Progression

Fortunately, in part because of its long history, gout is one of the most well-understood and most medically treatable forms of arthritis. The progression of gout is preventable by starting appropriate treatment as soon as possible, Dr. Meysami says. Uric acid-lowering agents, such as allopurinol , can decrease uric acid levels and prevent gout attacks.

During flares, gout patients can take NSAIDs or corticosteroids to calm the attack. Local steroid injections may also be given. A medication called colchicine is also often used to stop acute attacks, but its given now at a much lower dose in order to avoid side effects, including stomach upset.

After a flare ends, long-term treatment can begin. Almost all people with gout will need medication to control their urate, Dr. Fields says. To get a good outcome, people with gout need to get their blood urate level below 6.0 mg/dl and keep it there. By doing that, the body will gradually pull the urate crystals out of their joints, and the flares can stop. Tophi will also gradually disappear.

Medications called xanthine oxidase inhibitors limit the amount of uric acid your body produces. These include allopurinol and febuxostat . Colchicine, which decreases the inflammatory response to gout, may also be given along with allopurinol at the start of long-term treatment after a flare subsides.

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