Gout Causes, Symptoms, Treatments

Gout is a disorder that causes very painful, burning swelling in the extremities. It is actually a type of arthritis.

The symptoms of gout often come on suddenly with joint pain that is very intense, and with inflammation. When nothing is done to treat it, it will often disappear by itself in about 7 to 10 days. Causes of these sudden symptoms are from your joints becoming surrounded with urate crystals. These crystals come out of having too much uric acid in the blood. So if you have a tendency toward having gout, you might want to examine your diet to see if you are eating foods that have high levels of uric acid. The uric acids come out of purines, which are from animal fats. So that boils down to a lot of meats, and seafood's as well.

In the normal process of things, uric acid breaks down in the blood, and then exits through the kidneys. Sometimes the body on its own however, will produce too much uric acid, and this is in turn what causes the attacks of gout.

Your risk factors for the development of gout include such things as:

Taking diuretic pills or other pills that seem to stimulate uric acid levels in the blood. This is why it is important that every treating doctor you have knows your entire medical history and medications including those over the counter.

Eating a diet where almost all you eat is meat and no whole grains, fruits or vegetables. Meat contains animal fat which are purines.

This condition can run in families. If gout is part of the family background, you are likely to get it as well.

Some medical conditions may cause a person to have gout. If you have various types of kidney problems where uric acid doesn't excrete from the body, that can cause gout. Other problems can be from diabetes and diabetic neuropathy as a possibility, and clogging of the arteries.

Your gender can have a lot to do with it as well. Females are less inclined to have gout that are males. Males tend to produce much more uric acid that females do. The condition in any case, doesn't usually occur before age 40 or 50.

Your doctor will do some tests to figure out how to treat your condition with gout. One of the tests is to test the fluid from the joints and determine whether or not this fluid has the urate crystals. A blood test can possibly also tell if uric acid levels are high or not. The blood test for uric acid doesn't always prove to be accurate though since a person with gout may not show high levels of uric acids in the blood, and those without gout, show high levels.

Steroidal medications given for the short term may help gout from recurring. These medications can be injected into your joints which are being affected by the gout. One medicine known as Colchicine works for gout, but not without a lot of side effects. Sometimes it is better to take medications that are over-the-counter pain relief such as Advil, or Aleve while you are having a flare-up of gout.