What is Gout?
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What is Gout?

What is Gout?

Gout is a general type of inflammatory arthritis that is extremely painful. It typically impacts one joint at a time (usually your big toe joint). Sometimes when symptoms worsen, called flares, and times when there aren’t any symptoms, called remission. Having gout more than once can result in gouty arthritis, a type of arthritis which gets increasingly worse. Gout has no cure, but you can effectively manage and treat the condition through medication and self-management approaches.

What Is the Cause of Gout?

Gout is the result of an ailment referred to as hyperuricemia. This occurs when there is an excess of uric acid in your body. Your body creates this acid as it breaks down purines, that are found in your body and the foods you consume. If there is an excess of uric acid in the body, uric acid crystals can form in joints, tissues, and fluids, inside the body. Hyperuricemia is not always the cause of gout. Individuals that have hyperuricemia but don’t have symptoms of gout don’t require medical treatments.

How Is It Diagnosed?

A healthcare provider determines gout by gauging your symptoms and the outcome of your physical exam, X-rays, and laboratory tests. Gout is only diagnosed within a flare when a joint is burning, inflamed, and painful and when a laboratory test pinpoints uric acid crystals in the impacted joint.

How Is It Treated?

Gout can be successfully treated and managed with medical treatments and self-management approaches. Your healthcare provider may suggest a medical treatment plan for

  • Managing the pain of a flare. Treatments for flares includes non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen, and the anti-inflammatory drug colchicine. Injected or oral corticosteroids can also be utilized.
  • Preventing future flares. Make changes to your diet and lifestyle, like losing weight, restricting alcohol, staying away from foods that are high in purines (such as red meat or organ meat that can be the cause of gout flares), might help hinder future attacks. Modifying or stopping medications related to hyperuricemia (such as diuretics) might also help.
  • Preventing kidney stones and tophi. These stones happen because of frequently high levels of uric acid. Tophi are rigid, uric acid deposits underneath the skin. For people with chronic flares or frequent gout, doctors might suggest taking specific drugs such as febuxostat, allopurinol, and pegloticase. These drugs decrease uric acid levels and can impede future flares.

Together with medical treatment, you can control your gout with self-management approaches. Self-management approaches are things that you can do every day to control your ailment and stay healthy. The self-management approaches described below are proven to decrease pain and impairment in order to do the activities that are vital to you.

How Can I Control It and Improve My Quality of Life?

Gout impacts many facets of day-to-day living, including work and leisurely activities. Fortunately, there are many budget-friendly self-management approaches that are proven to improve the quality of life of individuals that have gout.

For Gout in Particular

  • Eat a diet that is healthy. Stay away from foods that might trigger a gout flare-up. These foods comprise of those high in purines (such as a diet rich in red meat, seafood, and organ meat)
  • Restrict alcohol intake, particularly hard liquor, and beer.

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Rheumatoid Arthritis vs. Gout

Rheumatoid Arthritis vs. Gout

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and gout have a great deal in common. The medical community deems them as kinds of arthritis. Meaning both cause pain, swelling, and joint stiffness. However, there are important variations among them, too.

Those variations include the reason they happen. There are also indicative variations in their symptoms that help to recognize the two. Since the cause of them are different, doctors also manage and treat them differently.

Are RA and Gout Caused by the Same Thing?

Rheumatoid arthritis and gout are both kinds of arthritis, but the primary causes are totally different. RA is an autoimmune disorder. It occurs when your body’s immune system attacks the tissue lining your joints. Those attacks can cause painful swelling, soreness, and joint abnormality. Because RA is an immune system disease it can impact other parts of the body, also, including your eyes, skin, and heart.

Gout impacts those with an excess of uric acid in their blood. Your body produces this kind of acid when breaking down specific foods, including meat. Your kidneys usually rids your body of it when you urinate. However, when there’s an excess of it in your system, the uric acid can produce crystals. These needle-like crystals build-up in joints and adjoining tissues in which they can cause pain and inflammation.

Do Gout and RA Have the Same Symptoms?

Both gout and RA is the cause of pain and stiffness in several joints. But otherwise, the two tend to conform to different patterns.

Rheumatoid arthritis. This ailment usually begins in smaller joints such as your feet and hands. They are going to feel swollen, tender, and warm to the touch. Then it typically moves to other, larger joints such as your shoulders, wrists, elbows, knees, ankles, and hips. It’s uncommon, but you might also suffer from fatigue and appetite loss or a fever, though that’s rare.

A lot of individuals have similar symptoms on each side of their body. Meaning if one shoulder hurts, the other one usually does, too.

Rheumatoid arthritis makes your joints feel stiff when waking up in the morning. The pain might get better with activity throughout the day.

Gout. Different from RA, it typically begins with a sudden pain of attack. The pain can be extreme. It isn’t uncommon for an individual that has gout to seem like their joint is on fire. It could seem like there’s a searing poker in their joint.

Gout typically impacts just one joint. Your big toe is a common area, but gout also can impact ankles, knees, wrists, or elbows.

The impacted joint also might appear red and swollen. It could be warm to the touch. Sometimes gout attacks can be the cause of a fever.

Are Doctors Going to Treat RA and Gout the Same Way?

Neither RA nor gout has a cure. However, there are treatments to help manage their symptoms. Some are the same for both conditions:

  • Treatments for Pain. Over the counter pain relievers such as naproxen and Tylenol can help with either condition. A medication known as colchicine could also relieve gout pain.
  • Treatments for Inflammation. Corticosteroids such as cortisone can help with inflammation and the pain caused by it.

In relation to treating the underlying ailment, doctors put their efforts for treating the cause. RA treatments might include medications that subdues the immune system.

Treatment for gout typically includes medications that hinder the increase of uric acid crystals.

What you’re eating can also impact the levels of uric acid in your blood. If you have gout, take these measures to prevent gout attacks:

  • Restrict alcohol
  • Limit meat consumption
  • Keep a healthy weight

Can You Have Gout and RA?

The bad answer is yes. Doctors used believe think that individuals that have RA did not get gout. But they’ve now realized that is not the case. The 2 are unmistakable conditions. So, it’s possible for an individual to have both.

Should you or a loved one have joint pain and don’t know the reason, it’s wise to see a doctor. They can examine your joints and take a blood and joint fluid test to discover the cause and choose the next steps.

Mobility Center In Mesa, Arizona

Mobility Center has been proudly serving the entire Phoenix, Arizona area since 1975 with the finest in mobility aids, scooters, wheel chairs, lifts and support equipment. Visit our convenient location to see the products and receive the individual attention that you deserve. Our service area includes Mesa, Apache Junction, Tempe, Chandler, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Glendale, Surprise, and Sun City.

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