Well Body Solutions

There are many Home Remedies for Gout available and if you follow these tips before you ever have an attack of gout, you may avoid it altogether. However if you have already developed gout, these tips are still effective and should be followed to help lessen the attacks and possibly prevent a re-occurrence.

Eating cherries are a great preventative measure to avoid gout and can help prevent repeat attacks.  Every day consume at least 20 to 40 bing cherries.  You can drink cherry juice as well, but if you can get the fruit whole, that is recommended, as juice is typically higher in sugar.  You can buy 100% cherry juice at health food stores that don’t have all the added sugar in it, but you may need to add a natural sweetener since many natural juices are very strong and almost bitter to the taste.

Drinking LOTS of water every day is good for the body in so many ways, and this is a popular tip for getting rid of gout that is important not to forget.  Drink at least 12- 8 ounce glasses a day (spread out throughout the day) Water flushes the uric acid out of the body as well as many other toxins.  So don’t forget this step!

In addition to water, drinking vegetable juice, herbal tea, soup and milk can count towards your daily fluid intake and help flush the uric acid out of your body.  Many people can just drink water, so having some other options is always a positive thing.

Foods that are high in vitamin C lower uric acid in the body, so eating things like tangerines, mandarins, oranges, potatoes, red bell peppers and red cabbage will give you extra vitamin c that will benefit the body.   Be sure to eat at least 5 servings of vegetables and fruits daily but don’t eat mushrooms, cauliflower, and asparagus, which raise uric acid levels.

Foods high in purine raise the uric acid levels in the blood and should be avoided.  Some high purine foods include liver, mackerel, the vegetables listed above that are warned against, shellfish, legumes, alcohol, and red meats.  Even turkey is high in purine so don’t eat a lot of it.   The more high purine foods you eat, the more uric acid is produced in the body, and the greater your chance of having a repeat attack of gout.

When you’re having a gout attack, it is advisable that you eliminate these above foods from your diet altogether.  It’s not easy to cut them out, especially if you enjoy them, but knowing they can help your gout, it may be worth it to you.

The American Medical Association recommends a diet higher in carbohydrates, lower in protein and no more than 30% of your total daily calories from fat.  This diet shows the best results for those who are suffering from gout and can help stabilize the body and avoid repeat attacks of gout.

Before searching for your ideal Home Remedies for Gout in your case you need to make sure you have Gout.

There are four stages of gout, but not all four stages involve symptoms.  Stage one is where uric acid levels in the blood are elevated, but other than that, there are no other symptoms.  If a doctor tests you and finds this elevated uric acid level in your blood, if you start doing things now to reduce the chances of you getting gout, you may be able to avoid it.

Stage two, acute gout, is where symptoms can present themselves.   In some people, gout symptoms may only be brief twinges of severe pain and it could be years before other symptoms appear.  If you have these twinges, you may want to start doing what you can now and finding some good Home Remedies for Gout to lessen the likelihood of getting the full blown symptoms.

Some other symptoms of acute gout include swelling around and on the joint, chills and fever and a feeling of just not feeling well; shiny, red skin that feels tight on the affected areas and could possibly develop peeling skin after a few days, and severe needle like pain on and around the joint that occurs usually in the early morning hours or late at night and could wake you up from a sound sleep with its severity.

More often than not, the pain and swelling occurs in one joint and in 60% of sufferers, that joint is the joint of the big toe.  This single joint attack is also referred to as monoarticular gout.  If more than one joint is affected, this is called polyarticular gout. This type of attack is usually in older people, and tends to occur on only one side of the body and in the lower extremities like the feet, toes and ankles.

The pain of those suffering from polyarticular gout is usually much slower to settle in than in monoarticular gout.  They also experience much longer periods between attacks which is a good thing.   People with this type of acute gout usually feel pretty ill, with low grade fevers, and no appetite.

The third stage of gout is a symptom free phase that is similar to remission, but if gout is left untreated, it will usually return within a couple of years.  Early treatment is the best course of action to help in preventing further attacks. It doesn’t guarantee you won’t get another attack, but it is much better than leaving it untreated.

When an attack of gout goes untreated, usually it gets worse within 1-2 days and then takes about 7 days to taper off and go away. With this being said, some attacks can last just a few hours and others can persist weeks.  There is no hard and fast rule with gout symptoms and they can change with each attack as well.  The common denominators are where the pain hits and the other symptoms mentioned above.

The fourth stage of gout is the most critical and debilitating.  The pain can become chronic, meaning you are always in pain and that is just not something anyone wants to have to get through.  When gout is treated early, development into the fourth stage of gout is rare so finding good Home Remedies for Gout is essential in its early stages.

Chances are you have heard the word Gout before, but many don’t know what it is.  Here is some history and general information on Gout that will educate those looking to find out about it before you can move on to finding the best Home Remedies for Gout.  Gout is a condition that tends to mostly affect men in their 40s and 50s.   It is uric acid that has deposited in the joints and soft tissues around the joints.  It causes needle like crystals to be formed and is extremely painful and causes inflammatory arthritis.   This inflammation leads to other things such as swelling, redness, and heat in the joints.   It usually affects the large joint of the big toe but can affect other joints as well.

There are many things that can cause Gout to develop:

Being overweight is definitely something that can cause gout to develop due to the extra tissue available to breakdown.  Genetics also play a factor in the development of gout.  If your father or grandfather suffered from it, chances are you will too at some point or at least have an increased possibility of it.

Another cause of gout is eating a diet high in purines.  Some foods high in purines are sardines, liver, mushrooms, herring, game meat, scallops, and others like it.  High purine foods increase uric acid production so limiting those kinds of foods can help prevent gout.

Drinking alcohol interferes with the body’s ability to get rid of uric acid and therefore is a potential problem that can cause gout to develop. You don’t have to eliminate it completely, unless you notice that drinking any amount of alcohol causes gout to flare up.

There are some medications that can increase the possibility of getting gout such as Niacin, Aspirin, Diuretics, Levodopa, and Cyclosporine.   People with high blood pressure and thyroid issues also may notice that they are susceptible to getting gout.

There are usually four stages of gout that it can progress through. It does not have to go through all four stages, and with proper treatment and good Home Remedies for Gout it probably will not.  The first stage is typically without symptoms and treatment is not required at this level.  Basically it just shows a higher level of uric acid in the blood.

The next stage is called acute gout, and has also been called acute gouty arthritis.   This is the stage that the crystals have been deposited into the joints and people can get sudden attacks of swelling and extreme pain that affect the joints. The joints may also feel warm and tender to the touch.  These attacks occur mostly at night, and usually go away within 3-10 days or so. They can be triggered by stress, illness, alcohol or drugs.  Over time, left untreated, the attacks can become more frequent and much more painful.

The third stage is almost a resting or remission phase.  It’s the period of time between acute attacks of gout.  During this stage the sufferer will not have any symptoms.  The fourth and most serious stage is Chronic Tophaceous Gout.  This type of gout develops over a long period of time and can cause permanent damage to the joints.  It can cause disability in those who suffer with this level of gout.  The good news is that with the right treatment, stage four gout is very rare.