Diagnosing a gout case can be very difficult sometimes. However, there are a few procedures that will help your doctor diagnose gout. Here are some of the medical investigations that you doctor will suggest ti diagnose gout:
- a blood test is maybe the first procedure that has to be made in diagnosing gout; a blood test can measure the urate level that you have in your blood; urate is the main cause of gout; however, a person can still have high urate levels in his/ her blood and still not suffer from gout; when raised levels of urate appear in the blood, this can indicate that you have gout, but this can also be caused by other medical conditions or medication that a person takes; furthermore, a person can have normal levels of urate in his/ her body during a gout attack;
- after a blood test that can give doctors an idea whether you can have gout or not, to be more sure and to be able to diagnose a gout case, doctors will examine the fluid that is found in your joints; this fluid can be extracted from your joints with the help of a needle; this can show you if indeed you suffer from gout or not; the fluid is then looked at under a microscope and if there are urate crystals( they indicate gout) , then they will be spotted right away; if indeed these crystals of urate are found in your joints, then, the blood test was right and you actually suffer from gout; this examination is not at all painful and it is very useful if your gout case starts very unusual; for example, a gout case can sometimes be mistaken for another rheumatic disease, like rheumatoid arthritis and gout can mimic this diseases very well;
- another investigation that can be made to diagnose a gout case is x- ray; x- rays of your joints can betaken to see whether you suffer from gout or not, but unfortunately in most of the cases, everything will appear normal and your doctor will not be able to tell if you have gout or not;