How painful is gout? "It feels like someone is hitting my bones with a hammer"

How painful is gout?

Some people describe it like this: "The tiger is constantly gnawing at your joints" and "The devil is constantly tearing at your feet."

The feelings of the patients are more real:

Clinically, the typical process of gout attack is: you are fine before going to bed at night, but you are awakened by pain in the middle of the night, and the foot joints become red, swollen, hot and painful. The pain becomes more and more severe, and you can't even stand the weight of the quilt, let alone walk. In severe cases, you may also experience systemic symptoms such as headache, fever, and elevated white blood cell count.

Gout is a disease that causes people to go crazy, but more than 20 million Chinese people suffer from it silently. The incidence of gout is still rising year by year, and it has now become the second largest metabolic disease after diabetes.

But in fact, the method of curbing and preventing gout is very simple. Let’s talk about it today!

How should gout be prevented and treated?

Before introducing the prevention and treatment of gout, we must first understand its pathogenesis:

The formation of gout is directly related to hyperuricemia caused by purine metabolism disorders or decreased uric acid excretion.

Among them, purine is a genetic material that exists in cells and food, and the metabolite of purine is uric acid.

Under normal circumstances, uric acid is excreted from the body through the kidneys. However, when the human body takes in too much purine or uric acid is not excreted smoothly, it will cause excessive accumulation of uric acid in the blood, inducing hyperuricemia.

Subsequently, the uric acid in the blood will precipitate in the form of crystals and tend to gather in places with low body temperature, such as the joint cavities of the limbs. When uric acid accumulates more and more, uric acid crystals will form, commonly known as tophi.

Whenever gout strikes, it is simply worse than death! The reason why it is so painful is not only the physical sting of uric acid crystals, but also the pro-inflammatory cytokines released by the body to fight against crystals, which can cause a severe inflammatory response in the body.

These symptoms are only the initial acute stage of the attack, which usually subsides within two weeks. However, some people do not change their lifestyle habits after becoming ill, which can lead to repeated attacks of gout. Once the attack enters the chronic stage, the pain usually lasts for a long time.

More seriously, gout may also cause gouty arthritis, kidney stones, nephritis, and even renal failure.

Therefore, once gout is discovered, active intervention should be carried out.

How should gout be prevented and treated?

Reducing the intake of high-purine foods is an effective way to prevent gout attacks.

The most common high-purine foods include animal offal, meat, juice and seafood. In view of the wide variety of foods, it is recommended that friends with gout and high uric acid have a "Common Food Purine Content Table" in hand.

Source: Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Drink more water and increase urination volume, so that more uric acid is excreted from the body, which can also effectively prevent urinary stones and kidney dysfunction.

It is recommended that people with high uric acid and gout drink at least 2000 ml of water every day. Never wait until you are thirsty to drink, because concentrated urine is very unfavorable for the excretion of uric acid.

In addition, here is a misunderstanding to correct

Many patients believe that alkaline water (such as soda water) can reduce uric acid. Indeed, alkaline water has the effect of alkalizing urine, but most of the soda water on the market has added sweeteners and flavors, which are not suitable for gout patients. Therefore, when choosing soda water, everyone must carefully read the ingredient list.

Exercise more and control your weight.

The body surface area and obesity level are directly proportional to the blood uric acid content. Obesity is also prone to lead to metabolic syndrome. Controlling weight helps control uric acid, so we should "control our mouth and move our legs."

Eat less salt and don't drink alcohol.

The sodium ions in table salt can precipitate uric acid, and alcohol will increase blood uric acid, especially beer, which may induce or aggravate gout.

Pharmacological intervention.

If you already have gout, you will need to take medicine unless it is in the early stages and under control. For example, if you have multiple gout attacks in a year or your uric acid level remains high, diet alone will not be enough.

The main treatment drugs are

💊To control acute attacks: nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, colchicine and glucocorticoids;

💊Uric acid-lowering drugs: allopurinol, febuxostat, probenecid, and benzbromarone;

💊To alkalize urine: sodium bicarbonate, sodium potassium citrate, some patients need to take them.

💊In addition, when tophi lead to complications of infection, some patients will use antibiotics such as cephalosporin, but they have no therapeutic effect on gout.

At present, there is no specific medicine that can completely cure gout. It still requires a combination of drug treatment + a reasonable diet + exercise to control uric acid levels within an appropriate range.

To stay away from the torture of gout, you must start with the little things in life. Don’t ask what to do if gout recurs? In fact, you know the solution, but the fluke mentality hurts you!

Source: Doctor Youlai