Gout （痛风 or 尿酸)

Gout （痛风 or 尿酸 in Chinese term）

Gout is the joint disease where there is urate deposit ( specifically monosodium urate monohydrate crystal) in joint resulting in inflammation which cause all the symptoms ( pain , warmth and so on). It is more common in men ( 20:1)
Cause ( aetiology) are overproduction (excessive production) of urate and underexcretion ( reduced excretion) of urate.
Urate is breakdown product from the purine ( building block of DNA). The food rich with purine contribute to hyperuricemia and indirectly to gout. Thus, patient with gout should avoid these foods such as peanut product ( including taufu or beancurd), internal organ and red meat.
Doctor will confirm diagnosis of gout by increased urate ( hyperuricaemia , hyper- mean high )in lab test and most accurately by finding the birefingent ( green-coloured crystal ) in synovial fluid.
How to manage this illness?
Rest yout joint, take pain killer ( NSAID-non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agent). In severe case, doctor will prescribe colchine ( which will stop division of cell), uricosuric drug ( induce urate excretion in urine), allopurinol ( which stop or inhibit one enzyme ( xanthine oxidase) in the process of purine breakdown).

These uricosuric drug and allopurinol should be taken with NSAID during acute attack (sudden or short-lived attack) because it will precipitate or worsen the attack leading to more pain. In all disease, medicines just do a part in management of the disease. Thus, in this case, patient should lose weight ( weight really burden your joint, that’s why obese patient easily had joint pain), reduce or stop alcohol consumption ( which will reduce urate excretion), reduce or stop the diuretic ( the drug which cause urination to excrete water from our body, usually used in heart failure-inability of heart to pump blood efficiently, high blood pressure/hypertension, water in lung ( pulmonary edema) and so on)

Medicine is ever changing field so the information maybe no longer correct in the moment you are reading it. Furthermore, this is written by the medical student ( not a qualified doctor yet) when he encounter the people with that disease and there is possibility of mistake in this text. Consult your nearby doctor if there is any query.