Healthy Living searches for Gout
Gout is a condition that mostly affects men. It can be linked to genetics, but it can also arise from alcohol consumption as well as age. The good news is that it is treatable and preventable. Healthy Living discusses this form of arthritis with Dr. Daniel Godinez.
Marleni Cuellar, Reporting
For those who’ve experienced it, gout it an extremely painful condition. A form of arthritis, gout is both easy to treat and can be prevented. Dr. Daniel Godinez helps us to understand more about this condition.
Dr. Daniel Godinez, Internist
Daniel Godinez
“Basically gout is a term that we use to describe a kind of arthritis that happen in to certain patients due to accumulation of uric acid in the joints. This problem of uric acid tends to be a genetic one and also get worse with the diet of the individual.”
Uric Acid is a natural waste product of the body. IT is what we normally expel in our urine. There are several reasons why the body may have accumulation of this acid.
Dr. Daniel Godinez
“As age advances you can excrete uric acid with less efficiency also the consumption of alcohol, facilitates the production of uric acid, your diet especially diet that is rich in certain foods like sea food or red meats. They have high contents of uric acid also the fact that there is a genetic background; many times in families, gout can be found there.”
These risk factors make the disease more predominant in the aging and males.
Dr. Daniel Godinez
“We do know that gout increases as age increase also so gout is real a problem that is really common in persons who are middle age and up and so we see an increase in persons starting at the age of 50/60 and 70’s. The older you are the more chances you will get gout. Also another situation is that this disease is much more common in men. For every woman that develop gout we see about ten men. Is there any particular reason why men are more predisposed to gout? Yes there are several reasons, one of them would be the diet again and actually something that can trigger grout is the excessive consumption of alcohol.”
But how do you know if you’ve developed gout? According to Dr. Godinez, the pain is hard to miss.
Dr. Daniel Godinez
“Gout is a type of arthritis. Certain joints are affected more than others, for some reason, that happens mostly in the foot, the first joint between the big toe and the rest of the foot. Also we see this arthritis in the knees, ankles and occasionally elbows. What you see basically is someone who is suffering severe pain, inflammation, redness in that particular joint and it tends to happen very suddenly.”
Uric acid level can be monitored through a simple blood test. In fact, high levels of the acid can be detected long before a person develops gout. However, if the accumulation of acid develops; there is treatment available.
Dr. Daniel Godinez
“Whenever somebody develops gout which is a very, very painful arthritis; it is one of the most painful arthritis. First thing we do is try to reduce the inflammation and the pain, so we use pain killers, anti inflammatory and later on when the patient is asymptomatic then we have medication we can use to decrease the levels of uric acid. So there are certain drugs that can lower the uric acid in your blood. And of course we ask and recommend the patient the things that are important for him or her, mainly him, which includes and adequate diet with a low consumption of red meats and seafood and also cutting down the intake of alcohol and hydrating herself or himself adequately.”
Dr. Godinez warns that repeated episodes of gout can end up destroying the joints and therefore, adhering to lifestyle changes is important as well as including a check of your uric acids in your check ups.
Dr. Daniel Godinez
“What we recommend to patients is that once they reach certain age, let’s say, 40-45 of age they should do a measurement of uric acid which is a very easy test to do.”
