Gout attacks occur suddenly in most of the cases. The first attack is surely going to develop at night, people getting to wake up feeling an extreme joint pain. During gout attack people usually develop the following symptoms: sudden and severe joint pain, swelling, reddish skin around the affected joints and extreme sensitivity in those areas.



All these symptoms might be a cause of an unhealthy diet or even the cause of too much alcohol drinking. Beside these factors that may lead to gout we also need to mention that gout may occur after a surgical intervention, after a sudden and severe illness or after chemotherapy. An injury to a joint might also lead to development of gout.

In the beginning of the disease rare episodes are happening. In that phase episodes do not last a long period of time. More than that after an episode everything seems to be going back to normal and between episodes no symptoms occur. It is recommended for the disease to be treated with medication in order to prevent the more often occurrence of these episodes. If gout is not treated the episodes might last longer and might occur more often too. The repeating episodes might lead to a damage of the affected joints, causing limited mobility after any attack.

Gout symptoms occur in three phases. The first phase refers to the sudden onset of a joint pain, especially in the big toe, that lasts more than 5 days, going in some cases up to 10 days or even more. The second period is believed to be a period with no symptoms or attacks. This is the period between episodes. The third phase refers to the untreated cases of gout. In this last phase persistent symptoms develop. During this phase episodes occur more often and cause severe pain.

Gout is a problem that definitely needs treatment. Many ways of easing the pain or avoiding the severe attacks are known. Doctors recommend the patients in most of the cases good rest and to increase the amount of fluids that they drink. This is recommended for the easy forms of gout. Acute gout has to be treated with medicine therapy in order to decrease the pain and inflammations in the joints. The drugs usually prescribed for acute gout are non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as indomethacin, ketoprofen, oxaprozin, diclofenac, ibuprofen and others.

Colchicine is also used because it eases the pain cause by gout. The problem with this medicine it's its side effects that can not be tolerated by any patient. Its side effects include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps.

Corticosteroids are also used but not as often as NSAIDs or colchicine because they do not have the same effect.

Chronic gout is usually treated with xanthine oxidase inhibitors or uricosuric agents that help the kidneys to eliminate the excess of uric acid produced in the body.