Do you do a lab test to discover if you have dizziness?
Or do you do a lab test to diagnose that you have tummy pain?
This sounds funny..
Dizziness, or tummy pain are symptoms that you describe. Gout, also, is a medical problem that you describe.
You cannot do a lab test to discover you have gout. You can do a lab test to discover you have high uric acid in the blood, but this does not mean you have gout. Only 20 percent of those who have high uric acid in the blood will get gout.
So what is gout? Gout is the description of recurrent attacks of intense pain and swelling and redness of one joint, mostly a foot joint, mostly a big toe, that would last 5 to 7 days on the average each time. If on a background of having high uric acid in the blood, you get such attacks, this is probably gout. Your doctor should confirm this of course. If you have high uric acid in the blood and you never had such attacks, you don't have gout. You only have high uric acid in the blood.
How do we manage gout? If get a gouty attack, we prescribe pain killers for a couple of days, but the most important thing that we do here is look for the cause the resulted in high uric acid in the blood to deal with it. Examples are obesity, high blood pressure, kidney problems, diabetes and high blood cholesterol. This is more important than simply prescribing medications to lower the uric acid.
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This post was prepared and published by Dr. Hatem Eleishi. Dr. Hatem Eleishi is a professor of rheumatology at Cairo university (Egypt) and is especially dedicated to supporting arthritis patients with online educational videos and articles about arthritis causes and treatment. He also runs a rheumatology clinic in Cairo and a center for online medical consultations that, in addition to providing online rheumatology consultations, also provides online medical consultations in several different medical specialties by expert consultants from Egypt, Canada and the United States.
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