You chose chronic or acute gout treatment for Starting Gout Treatment Guidelines. If you have not made that choice yet, please go back to that first step in your gout treatment plan. In this step, it’s time for a reality check.
How confident are you that you can stop gout pain. Can you lower uric acid without a doctor? Do you really need treatment, or can you remove the causes of your gout?
See Chronic or Acute Gout Treatment summary.
You might be absolutely certain about the gout treatment choices that you have already made. That’s fine! If you are certain, skip this step, and go straight to Medical or Natural Gout Treatment.
Now, we can see how realistic your ambitions are. This is something you can discuss with your doctor, or other health adviser. In the gout forums, I offer personal help.
When you discuss your treatment plan with your doctor, you can ask if your treatment goals are feasible. Your doctor can look at your medical history and test results. But what if you are trying to self-treat? What if you want to remove the causes of your gout instead of seeking gout treatment?
Every person has their own different checks that they need to do now. These differ depending on what you have chosen to include in your plan. For preventing gout pain returning, I explain chronic gout treatment checks below. For stopping gout pain, you need to consider these acute gout treatment checks. But first, 2 updates…
Are you clear about stopping gout pain as soon as possible? Or even preventing gout pain?
My 2022 gout pain plan affects some aspects of this article.
Read the Clear Gout Pain Plan now.
2020 Gout Treatment Plans
This is step 2 of Personal Gout Treatment Guidelines 2016. Now I have replaced this single plan with several plans for different types of gout sufferers. So the nearest equivalent is GoutPal Plan for Gout Students. Where you learn about medical, herbal, or dietary uric acid treatment. Before deciding on one approach. Or your mixture of more than one approach.
Therefore, you can continue with your learning. Or switch to a new plan starting at Questions for Gout Sufferers.
Acute Gout Treatment Checks
What we know as a gout attack or gout flare, medics call acute gout. Acute gout treatment should be easy, but there are lots of ways it can go wrong. This is not an exhaustive list. You need to explain your own circumstances to your doctor, or discuss them in the gout forum. Acute gout treatment checks include:
- Do you understand the basics?
- Stop inflammation spreading
- Reduce existing inflammation
- Block residual pain
- Are effective inflammation blockers available to you within your budget?
- Are effective anti-inflammatories available to you within your budget?
- Are effective pain blockers available to you within your budget?
- Do you have treatment for other health conditions that might affect gout pain treatment?
Chronic Gout Treatment Checks
Excess uric acid forms crystals. These crystals clump together as lumps called tophi. When these crystals cause more than one gout attack per year, you have chronic gout. Chronic gout treatment involves lowering uric acid below its crystallization point. That prevents new crystals forming, and encourages old crystals to dissolve. As with acute gout, you have to consider your test results, medical history, and other relevant personal circumstances. Chronic gout treatment checks include:
- Do you have access to monthly uric acid testing?
- Can someone interpret how your test results affect treatment?
- How important is monitoring liver function and kidney function?
- Is your timescale for dissolving your urate burden reasonable?
- Have you considered the risk of gout flares until your urate burden is dissolved?
Gout Cures without Treatment Check
Though primary gout cannot be cured, it can be controlled. I explained the two aspects of primary gout control above. Secondary gout is gout that is caused by another condition. In those circumstances, if the cause of gout is avoidable, then removing that cause will cure gout permanently.
Note that most gout is genetic, and therefore cannot be cured. There are various tests and investigations that can help determine avoidable causes of gout. I cover these in my Gout Causes pages. As such, specific checks are not included in this treatment plan. You can get help now, in the gout forum. Please ask there if you are concerned about obesity, blood pressure medicine, environmental pollutants, or other forms of secondary gout.
There is, however, one important gout cures without treatment check. You must assess how long it will take to remove the cause of your secondary gout. For example, it can take several years to treat obesity. In such a case, you should consider temporary treatment for both acute and chronic gout.
Chronic or Acute Gout Treatment?
In this step, we’ve looked more closely at the gout treatment goals we started with. By checking available resources, and our own situation, we can confirm or amend our goals. Next, we decide the type of treatment that suits us best.
If you are not sure if your gout treatment goals are realistic, check with your doctor. If you don’t understand your doctor’s responses, ask in the gout forum.
This is the second step in my Personal Gout Treatment Guidelines 2016 series. The next step is Medical or Natural Gout Treatment? The full series is:
- Starting Gout Treatment Guidelines
- Chronic or Acute Gout Treatment?
- Medical or Natural Gout Treatment?
- a) Which Gout Treatments for Pain Control?
b) Which Gout Treatments for Uric Acid Control? - Monitor Your Treatment of Gout
- Successful Gout Treatment at Home
- Medication For Gout Aftercare
Leave Chronic or Acute Gout Treatment to return to your GoutPal Plan for Gout Students.
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TL;DR - Chronic or Acute Gout Treatment?
Chronic or Acute Gout Treatment summary- This is a reality check. If you are certain you've already made the right choices, then skip to Medical or Natural Gout Treatment.
- Do you have gout treatment resources that match your medical history and test results?
- Is it feasible to drop gout treatment in favor of removing your causes of gout?
If you need help improving your personal gout treatment plan, ask in GoutPal's Gout Forum.
