Typically, the stages of gout are described by the western medical community as follows:
- Asymptomatic Hyperuricemia
- Acute Gout
- Interval Gout
- Chronic Tophaceous Gout
The explanations of these stages of gout don’t follow my personal experience or my observation of the many people I’ve interacted with who have been struggling with gout for long periods of time.
The type of gout they call “Interval Gout” is meaningless. After the first gout attack, the interval that passes with each subsequent flare-up is irrelevant.
Properly denoted, the stages of gout are as follows:
For the sake of clarity and to thoroughly answer, what is gout, I’ve devoted an individual page to each of these stages of gout.
How Gout Progresses
Often when someone gets gout for the first time they are completely caught off-guard – maybe you can relate. The excruciating pain that slowly arrived from out of nowhere is bewildering. The usual pain remedies either produce no relief or very little. It was a trip to the emergency room that clarified the answer for me.
What usually goes unanswered is how long the condition been developing. Over time the inner body environment becomes increasingly acidic, and one of the acidic substances is uric acid.
Uric acid, the culprit, the bad guy, is produced naturally by the body and is an important antioxidant that serves many protective functions within the body. This fact about uric acid is not often advertised.
. . .
I know that I’ve told you but you really Saved me from Gout Bert. I’m off meds and been Gout free since I called you. You are a life saver. You changed my life for the better and I can never repay you. I guess just riding the Hell out of my bike and living Gout free will have to do. BTW I was doing some Downhilling in AngelFire NM 2 weeks ago and in 11 days we’re headed to Whistler BC for 10 days. Look at my Facebook for pics soon.
Thank you again,
Matt
. . .
What Comes Next
After you’ve received your initiation into the gout club, the gout attacks start to progress . . . sometimes slowly, sometimes more quickly. Generally, most people report that the following attacks start to happen more often and with much more painful consequences.
It’s at this stage of the gout game, that most folks realize it’s here to stay . . . if they don’t devote some attention to keeping it under control.
To understand it correctly, because you’re experiencing gout, the inner body terrain is now more often and to a greater degree, in an un-healthy “acidic” condition rather than a more healthful “alkaline” condition.
The Final Stages of Gout
After a few years, and after enduring an increasing number of attacks, how you characterize the types of gout, really doesn’t matter; it’s dangerous, both directly and indirectly.
Having a gout attack in a joint is like having a joint injury; too many injuries in the same joint can produce permanent damage.
Beyond that, gout is a painful omen of worse things to come; diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and more. Gout is the easy part; it’s time to pay attention to what your body is trying to tell you.
Finally, if gout is left completely unattended, deposits of urate crystals called Tophi will start to form ugly and grotesque looking lumps around the joints of the fingers, toes, knees, elbows and even on the ears.
To make matters worse, kidney stones can be formed from urate crystals as well, caused potentially fatal renal complications.
+ Remember! Gout can progress from one stage to another without much notice – be proactive!
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