Gout

Imagine getting up one fine morning and finding the skin over your feet or ankle red, shiny and severely painful! Well, you’re afflicted with one of the most common forms of arthritis called gout. This may give swelling or pain to any of your joints within 12 to 24 hours. The bad news is gout affects mostly men; women are prone only after menopause. According to the Wellington Regional Rheumatology Unit , New Zealand almost 10% adult males are afflicted with it.

Understanding gout

Gout usually affects one or two joints at a time and your feet and ankles are most vulnerable to it, with the ball of the big toe being the most common site. The gout attack usually subsides without treatment in a week or so and there may be intervals of many months or even years between attacks.

However, with the passage of time, these attacks tend to become more frequent and severer and may eventually involve many joints, sometimes all at the same time! At this stage, there’s a great risk of chronic or continuous joint disease with progressive joint damage, disability and crippling. The cause of gout is the increased levels of uric acid, a chemical which is a natural part of the normal breaking down and building up of food and body tissues.

a. Heredity. b. Obesity. c. High alcohol intake. d. High purine content in foods, like red meat, liver, kidneys, tripe, sweetbreads, tongue, shellfish, fish roe, scallops, peas, lentils and beans. e. Some drugs for high blood pressure. f. In some cases, longstanding kidney disease.