What Is Gout in Foot?

What Causes Gout Symptoms & Treatment?

Table of Contents

• Gout Types
• What Causes Gout
• Common Risk factors
• Gout Symptoms
• Gout in foot
• Gout in toe
• Diagnosis
• On The Shelf Remedies

What Is Gout in Foot?

Gout is the most common type of joint arthritis (Gout or gouty arthritis) that causes severe sharp pain, stiffness, and swelling. It commonly affects the metatarsophalangeal joint, the joint at the base of the big toe. High uric acid in the blood is the leading cause of gout.

More than 3 million Americans are affected by gout, and it is the most in males having inflammatory arthritis condition. In women, it happens after menopause and is less common compared to men.

Gout occurrences happen quickly and might reoccur over time. The reoccurrence can be extremely painful and could gradually damage tissues in the inflammation area. The most known risk factors are obesity, high blood pressure, and a heart condition.

Gout Types

Acute gout

It is when urate crystals buildups cause severe pain and inflammation in patient's joint. This condition usually lasts between two to three days, depending on the patient. High levels of stress and alcohol consumption can contribute to acute gout conditions.

Intercritical or Interval gout

Intercritical gout is the time frame between acute gout attacks. These intervals will be shorter as the patient's gout progresses over time. During this stage, the urate crystal buildup continues.

Asymptomatic Hyperuricemia

The patient can have a high level of uric acid without symptoms. In the majority of these cases, your podiatrist will not recommend any treatment for this condition and will monitor the progress.

While the patient does not need treatment, a high uric acid level in the blood could damage the tissues.

In such a case, your podiatrist or internist would address the uric acid level to prevent further damage.

Chronic tophaceous gout in foot

It is the most dangerous type of gout that might result in permanent tissue, joint, and kidney damage. Patients might have chronic arthritis and develop tophi which are telltale signs patient's gout is out of control in other areas of the body like fingers and joints.

Chronic tophaceous usually occurs after a long time of having acute gout attacks. If the patient receives preventive and proper care on time, it is improbable to reach this stage.

Pseudogout

Pseudogout is calcium pyrophosphate deposition gout and easily confused by doctors with gout. Symptoms are very similar, but the severity is usually less. The most significant difference between pseudogout and regular gout is the joint irritation due to the presence of calcium pyrophosphate crystals.

Pseudogout is different from regular gout.

Gout Flare Risk factors

Below are some risk factors worth to mention

• Age: Gout is more common in older adults and rarely affects children.
• Hereditary: If the patient has gout in the family, then there's more likely to develop symptoms.
• Sex: Gout is most common among men of age 65 years old and over, and men develop gouts four times more than women.
• Lifestyle: Drinking Alcohol is a significant factor in developing gout as alcohol consumption raises the uric acid level in the blood. A high-purine diet is the other cause of the increased risk of gout. Seafood including anchovies, shellfish, sardines, codfish, mussels herring, trout, scallops, and haddock are among the food not suitable for gout. Other food like turkey, veal, bacon, venison, and liver could increase gout flare risk.
• Medications: Any medication that increases the level of uric acid in the body, including some diuretics containing salicylate
• Weight: Obesity and overweight
• Health conditions: Kidney diseases, diabetes, and other diseases causing high blood pressure are among the other risk factors.

Gout Symptoms in Foot

Main symptoms of gout symptom is severe pain in the joints affected by it. In addition, it comes with discomfort, pain, and redness in the area affected.

The big toe's base is usually affected by gout, but it could occur in ankles, knees, wrists, elbows, fingers, and other joints.

Treatment For Gout in Toe

The excessive uric acid crystals produced in the body is called Hyperuricemia, and it is the leading cause of developing gout in joints.

The most used gout treatment is medication, but drugs improve the symptoms and not the cause. However, for treatment for gout in the toe, using drugs could be helpful to prevent developing gouts in the future and kidney stones.

To reduce the intense pain and swelling, the most common drugs for gout are nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Antigout drugs are prescribed to reduce uric acid, and patients may use medication to address the uric acid overproduction in the body.

Acute gout usually lasts a day, and the recovery time is between 1 to 2 weeks without using drugs. Pain could be excessive during this period.

Gout Diagnosis

It is not easy to diagnose gout as there are other conditions with similar symptoms. For example, Hyperuricemia occurs when a person develops gouts but may not be present when an attack happens. As a result, at the time of examination, the patient may not have Hyperuricemia.

The most secure way to diagnose gout is to measure the level of uric acid and urate crystals in the patient's blood and joints fluid.

Your podiatrist and fluid order a blood test from affected joints might be drawn and examined.

Another way to help diagnose gout is searching for urate crystals with the help of ultrasound, as an x-ray cannot detect gouts in joints.

What Causes Gout in Foot?

A high level of blood uric acid or Hyperuricemia is the leading cause of gout. Body produces uric acid to dissolve purines or chemicals with a high concentration in red meat, seafood, or poultry. Kidneys discharge the uric acid collected from the blood in the body. If the patient has produces too much uric acid or kidneys fail to manage it, the result will be sharp crystals buildup in the joints, causing pain and inflammation.

Complications Caused by Gout

If the gout is too severe or unattended, it can develop into a painful condition called a kidney stone.

On The Shelf Remedies For Gout in Foot

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory over-the-counter n drugs, like ibuprofen, naproxen sodium, or aspirin, could help address the symptoms and reduce them. Still, for that, we suggest that you consult with your podiatrist first.

Gout in Big Toe

Gout is inflammatory arthritis in the big toe. Most of the time, it attacks the big toe joints. Patients often have the first gout attack in one of their big toes. The symptoms are tenderness, redness, and the toe is swollen. Treatment for gout in the big toe and gout in the middle toe is as described above.