Gout Stages
Clear info about stages of gout arthritis and how they affect your gout treatment. Gout is a form of arthritis or joint inflammation. The cause of gout lies in a prolonged excess of uric acid in the blood that deposits itself as crystals in the joints causing the most painful of all arthritis. Knowing your gout stage will help you taking the exact gout remedies for further gout prevention.
4 stages of gout
Gout is a disease that can progress into the following 4 stages:
1. Asymptomatic hyperuricemia
In this stage, you won’t have any gout symptoms. However you will have elevated levels of uric acid in your blood. This is called hyperuricemia and can cause gout. Usually no gout treatment will be given in this stage.
2. Acute gout – Acute gouty arthritis
In this stage of gout, your hyperuricemia has caused the deposit of uric acid crystals in your joint spaces. This leads to the most know symptom of gout: a sudden and intense swelling and extreme gout pain in the joints, most likely the big toe, which also becomes very warm and tender. This acute gout attack usually happens at night and can be triggered by:
- alcohol or drugs
- the presence of another illness or
- stressful events.
With or without gout treatment, these gout symptoms will disappear after 3 to 10 days. It is utterly important that you get this attack diagnosed as a gout attack by examining the synovial fluid from the affected joint. Once gout is detected, cures for gout will be prescribed for future gout prevention.
Gout treatment in this acute stage will boil down to resting the gouty joint for at least 24 hours and gout pain relief using:
- orally taken NSAIDs (non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs
- corticosteroids orally taken or directly injected into the gouty joint
- colchicine within the 12 first hours of the gouty attack, taken every hour until the gout symptoms improve or the side effects of colchicine outweigh the benefits
- the proven gout home remedy: ice wrapped in towels applied to the gouty joints a few times a day for at least 20 to 30 minutes
3. Interval or intercritical gout
This is the period between 2 gout attacks and you wont see nor feel any gout symptoms. Your second gout attack may only happen months or years after your first acute gouty arthritis and can keep people from taking gout serious and treating gout. However over time gout attacks will occur more frequently and last longer.
It is during this stage that you need to change your lifestyle, take doctor prescribed medicine to lower the uric acid levels in your blood or increase the kidney’s ability in removing uric acid and follow a diet for gout avoiding foods that cause gout.
4. Chronic tophaceous gout
In this stage of gout, the causes of gout will have disabled you by inflicting permanent damage to joints or even damage to the kidneys due to the development of kidney stones. When diagnosed early and following an holistic gout cure, people should never reach this advanced stage of gout.
Gout stages summarized
The cure for gout lies in early detection. Take regular blood samples to find out whether your uric acid levels are above 6 mg/dL. Once you have your first gout attack, make sure it is diagnosed properly with a synovial fluid examination. Once you know you have gout, make sure you change your lifestyle and follow a gout diet to avoid a next gout attack to never reach stage 4 of chronic tophaceous gout.
