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Many of us are familiar with the "three highs" of high blood pressure, high blood lipids, and high blood sugar. Now there is one more high - high uric acid, which has become the "four highs". High uric acid can cause gout and seriously affect the patient's life. Let's learn about gout together.

Gout Gout is a disease characterized by increased blood uric acid levels due to purine metabolism disorders and abnormal uric acid excretion, accompanied by the deposition of sodium urate crystals in connective tissue. Clinically, it manifests as hyperuricemia, repeated attacks of acute gouty arthritis, tophi deposition, characteristic chronic arthritis and arthritis deformity. It often involves the kidneys, causing chronic interstitial nephritis and renal uric acid stone formation, and may cause joint disability and renal insufficiency. Acute gouty arthritis is the most common first symptom of gout.

With the improvement of people's living standards and the change of dietary structure, the consumption of cereals has decreased and the consumption of meat has increased. The incidence of gout has increased year by year and is prone to recurrence. If it is not cured, it will develop into chronic gout. Chronic gout can affect multiple organs and cause multiple complications, thus causing greater harm to the body. In addition, the incidence of gout is higher in men than in women. Men are more likely to develop the disease in middle age, while women are all postmenopausal. This may be because estrogen promotes uric acid excretion.

Treatment of acute gout Gout cannot be cured at present. Dietary factors are very important in controlling acute attacks. The goal of controlling acute gout attacks and preventing recurrence should be achieved during clinical treatment. During the acute gouty arthritis period, patients should stay in bed and raise the affected limb to avoid weight bearing on the affected joints. Cold compress is an effective auxiliary treatment method to reduce joint inflammation. Local cold compress can reduce inflammation, joint pain and reduce the amount of synovial exudate. Therefore, it is beneficial to apply cold compress to patients during the inflammatory attack period.

The main treatment drugs for the acute phase are colchicine, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and glucocorticoids, which can effectively relieve symptoms but do not reduce blood uric acid levels. Treatment to control acute attacks should be continued until the inflammation completely subsides. Premature discontinuation of medication or premature resumption of physical activity often leads to relapse.

Treatment of chronic gout by TCM Most of the existing research reports on gout treatment focus on acute gout attacks, while there are few studies on the treatment of chronic gout. Chronic gout requires long-term, continuous and comprehensive treatment due to the recurrence of gout.

The pathogenesis of gout is still unclear, and Western medicine treatment options are immature. There is no specific drug, and most of them have certain adverse reactions, which patients cannot tolerate for a long time. Traditional Chinese medicine has made significant progress in treating this disease through oral medications and external treatments. Traditional Chinese medicine treatment can not only effectively control the clinical symptoms of gout in the acute stage and slow down the occurrence of complications, but also has fewer adverse reactions than Western medicine, is inexpensive, and is easy for patients to accept and adhere to treatment.

Gout belongs to the category of arthralgia in traditional Chinese medicine and is also called Baihu Lijie. Some people also think it belongs to pain arthralgia or wind arthralgia. Traditional Chinese medicine literature has long recorded that "the blood of those who suffer from gout is heated and has already boiled. After that, they may wade in water or stand in wetlands, or take a cool place, or lie in wetlands. The coldness and coldness are external, and the hot blood gets cold, which is turbid and astringent, so it causes pain. The pain is more severe when moving, and it is also in the yin." It is believed that this disease is caused by the heat of the blood itself, and then the wind, cold and dampness. Therefore, the cause of this disease is related to dampness and heat. The pathogenesis is that people usually like to eat fatty and sweet food, and phlegm, dampness and heat are accumulated in the body. In addition, they eat too much greasy food, seafood, and wine. In addition, due to the external wind evil, the meridians are invaded, and the qi and blood are not smooth, resulting in local burning, redness, swelling, and dysfunction, and even qi stagnation and blood stasis, and the obstruction of collaterals leads to joint deformity.

When gout attacks, the joints are red, swollen, hot and painful, with white or yellow greasy fur, and a stringy or rapid and powerful pulse, which is mainly manifested by internal dampness and heat. The treatment method is to clear away heat and dampness, dispel wind and dredge the collaterals, and the prescription is Simiao San combined with Baihu Tang with modifications. In the late stage, long-term arthralgia enters the collaterals, blood stasis stagnates, collaterals are blocked, joints become thick, deformed, stiff, and activities are gradually restricted. In addition to dispelling dampness and dredge the collaterals, the treatment must also be supplemented with blood circulation and blood stasis. Therefore, the treatment principles are to clear heat, remove dampness, and relieve turbidity.

Prevention of gout (1) Eat a planned and reasonable diet, limit the intake of foods high in purine, eat less high-protein and high-cholesterol foods, limit alcohol consumption, and avoid overeating.

(2) Drink plenty of water, no less than 1500 to 2000 ml per day to increase urine flow. Avoid excessive stress, fatigue, cold, infection and hunger, and protect joints.

(3) Develop good living habits, control smoking and drinking, and engage in appropriate physical activities, such as brisk walking and jogging. Maintain an ideal weight. If you are overweight, you should lose weight gradually, otherwise it is easy to cause ketosis or acute gout.

(4) Avoid using drugs that inhibit uric acid excretion. Actively treat gout-related diseases such as hypertension, hyperlipidemia, coronary heart disease, and diabetes.

(5) Check blood uric acid regularly. Once elevated uric acid levels are detected, uric acid-lowering drugs may be used as appropriate to reduce gout attacks and minimize the damage caused by urate to major tissues.