After a few years of not looking after your body, eating lots of rich meats and drinking to much beer, there is a good chance that your body will have accumulated enough uric acid crystals for your first experience of gout.
If you have any of the following symptoms then there is a good chance you have gout:-
1. They will feel some warmth along with extreme tenderness when the infected joint is touched. Normally the joint most commonly affected by this condition is the big toe. But as well as the warmth and tenderness a person will notice the joint has become inflamed and it is also painful. These particular symptoms of gout are more commonly referred to as podagra.
2. No one who hasn’t had a gout attack start at bedtime can believe how much pain can come just from the brushing of your partners foot against the infected joint, normally your big toe.
3.Some gout sufferers will have an attack that comes on quickly and lasts many hours. After the initial pain, which can be very intense, the level drops over the next 2 days to a week.
4. Gout attacks do subside, I know if you are reading this while having an attack that may be hard to believe, after the pain starts going away you can expect the affected joint to be itchy and you may also see some peeling skin.
Like any illness, gout affects different people in different ways. Some people will recognize all the symptoms mentioned here while others won’t recognize any of them, you may only get pain in your elbows for example and none in the big toe joint which we mentioned.
While it is usually your big toe joint that suffers the effects of gout , which of course makes walking very painful, you can also get it in any joint in your body. This includes your fingers, elbows, ankles and even your wrists.
If you have recently had surgery then there is a increased chance that you will have a gout attack. These after surgery attacks seem to be short in length, although just as painful as any other attack, it can also be treated as a side effect of the surgery rather than actual gout.
When a person starts to display any of the symptoms we have mentioned here it is vital to get them to see a Dr. Some people will dismiss the pain as a temporary discomfort, however without proper medication it will come back worse the next time.
