I believe that every gout patient will experience recurrent gout attacks in the process of fighting against gout. However, patients who have been ill for a long time should have a deeper understanding of recurrent gout attacks:
From the first few years, to a few times a year, a few months, to a few times a month, finally may have arthritis, pain for a long time.
At the same time, some patients who have just started taking uric acid lowering drugs will also wonder:
Why did gout attack more frequently after taking medicine?
Why does gout recur? How can we avoid recurrent attacks of gout?
The Root Cause of Recurrent Gout
Gout patients often ask:
Why is it normal for me to check uric acid when I have a gout attack?
My uric acid is high every day, but why did it happen today?
In fact, if only uric acid crystals exist in the joint cavity, gout generally does not attack, and the main culprit is the formation of uric acid [microcrystals], which leads to acute attack of gout.
At present, it is generally believed that the formation of [microcrystals] is caused by the fluctuation of uric acid. That is to say, the fluctuation of uric acid level is the direct cause of gout attack.
Uric acid increases or decreases, can lead to gout attacks
[Uric acid fluctuation] includes two meanings, one is to increase and the other is to decrease.
1. The sharp rise of uric acid leads to attacks.
This is easy for everyone to understand.
For example, it is the season to eat crayfish now. If you eat crayfish at night, beer and barbecue, uric acid will rise sharply and gout will attack at this time.
2. Lower uric acid can also cause recurrent attacks.
For some patients who have just started taking medicine to reduce uric acid, the reason for recurrent gout attacks is the decrease of uric acid.
This is because the uric acid reduction therapy has taken effect and the blood uric acid has decreased, resulting in the formation of joint cavity [microcrystals]. At this time, frequent gout attacks can also be regarded as a sign of dissolution of uric acid crystals (stones).
Do this to reduce recurrent gout attacks
After knowing the two main causes of recurrent gout attacks, I believe everyone can probably come up with a solution.
1. Reduce uric acid and gout recurrence
Some studies have shown that the recurrence rate of gout is less than 10% when the blood uric acid is less than 300 mol/L; However, the recurrence rate of gout was 80% when the serum uric acid was > 540 mol/L, which was 8 times higher than that of patients < 300 mol/L.
Therefore, for patients who have not been treated or have not been treated regularly, they must be treated regularly with uric acid reduction. The medication of uric acid reduction drugs should be used, and the taboos of the taboos should be taboos. Only when the blood uric acid control reaches the standard can gout recurrent attacks be reduced.
2. Uric acid reduction therapy should pay attention to standardization
In the treatment of reducing uric acid, especially for patients who have just started to reduce uric acid, gout is especially easy to induce due to the reduction of uric acid. Two points should be paid attention to at this time:
(1) Try to reduce uric acid steadily
Due to large individual differences, the speed of uric acid reduction of the same dose of uric acid reduction drugs is often different in different people. In particular, benzbromarone and febustat have strong uric acid reduction effect and are prone to disease fluctuation. Therefore, uric acid reduction cannot be pursued quickly.
(2) Use drugs to prevent attacks
Often, some patients do not take a box of uric acid-lowering drugs after taking it, because they feel that [this medicine is useless, it is good not to take it, and gout occurs more frequently after taking it].
Therefore, when starting uric acid reduction treatment, it is particularly important to apply colchicine and other drugs to prevent gout attacks. This can not only relieve short-term recurrent pain, but also strengthen everyone’s determination to reduce uric acid, thus achieving the long-term goal of gout treatment.