Gout is an arthritic condition that causes soreness, pain, and redness in joints. The pain can be sudden and severe. Sometimes, sufferers wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling that their joints are on fire.
This discomfort is caused by the buildup of uric acid in joints. Uric acid is normally in your urine and is a normal metabolic byproduct of purine, a component of a variety of foods but mainly found in animal products. A buildup of uric acid crystallizes in joints, causing inflammation and its resulting pain.
1. Pain in Your Big Toe
It’s such a small part of your body, but your big toe could be telling you that you have gout.
Pain in the big toe is one of the most common symptoms of gout. The joints in your toe can be under assault from uric acid, which causes a painful inflammatory reaction.
This pain usually occurs at night because of the changes in body temperature, and the pain can extend to the base of your big toe and even well into your foot.
2. Redness on Your Joints
You may notice redness on the skin that covers your joints.
Redness on your heels, knees, toes, fingers, or wrists could be indications of inflammation around the joints.
Uric acid triggers inflammation, which triggers an increase in blood flow to the joints. This increased circulation causes the redness.
3. You Have Just Had Surgery
Physical trauma and injury can cause uric acid to pool at the injured site. Injuries can also cause inflammation as the body tries to heal damaged tissue.
If you have gout, injuries can increase inflammation at certain sites, exacerbating existing inflammation caused by uric acid.
4. You Drink A Lot of Booze
Beer and spirits are linked to gout 1. People have long noticed the correlation between boozing it up and gout attacks. Overindulging in alcohol is not healthy for sure!
Alcohol causes sharp increases in uric acid. But there’s good news in all of this. Moderate wine consumption does not appear to increase the risk of gout as other types of alcohol do 1,2.
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5. You Eat a Lot of Meat
Animal flesh is full of purines which your body converts into uric acid. If your diet is centered around meat, or if you are consuming it in excess, you will be at a higher risk for developing gout.
In past centuries, gout was known as “the disease of kings” or a disease of the rich due to the huge amounts of meat and alcohol that were consumed by the upper classes.
6. You Regularly Get Kidney Stones or Have Kidney Issues
The kidneys remove uric acid from the body, but excessive amounts of uric acid can damage the kidneys and make them more prone to problems.
7. You Have Nodules (Bumps) Under Your Skin
Uric acid crystals usually occur in the joints, but they can also form in soft tissues like muscles or skin. You would have to be pretty disconnected from what is going on in your body if you first noticed that you had gout because you suddenly noticed the formation of nodules. The redness and joint pain should have been apparent to you by this point!
8. You Have Type II Diabetes
Though gout doesn’t occur directly as a result of diabetes, researchers have found that your chances of developing gout are greatly increased if you have Type 2 diabetes 3.
9. Stiffness in Your Joints
Since uric acid crystals and the attendant inflammation attack your joints, stiffness can result because of damage to joint tissue.
As the inflammation becomes chronic, joint tissue breaks down, and chronic stiffness is the result. Your joints are supposed to help you move flexibly and youthfully, but gout can steal this function away from you.
Tired of regular gout flare-ups?
If so I’ve got some goods news…
The cause of gout is simply too much uric acid build up in your joints. Before you rush to the doctor, you can take steps to fight back against too much uric acid - the safe and natural way!
Nutritionist Evan Burns, reveals how in his FREE report, with a dozen ways to fight excess uric acid -- without prescriptions or steroids!
