Hello, Mrs. Vintin. You have been diagnosed with gout. This is a form arthritis and it’s treatable. There are many ways we can reduce the risk of grout reoccurring, once we treat it. You may have been experiencing symptoms like severe attacks of pain, redness, and tenderness of your joints. You may have had joint pain on the base of your big toe as well. You can also have sudden pain without warning, which has often been happening at night for you. I'm glad you came to me now. If we didn't get you treated soon, you could have had damage to your joints from reoccurring attacks. That can decrease your movement as grout gets worse in time. Gout is caused by a chemical in the blood called, uric acid. It’s usually harmless and is made in the body. …show more content…
Some of the treatments for the attacks can include: raising your leg to help reduce swelling, ice pack for inflammation, which should be applied for 20 minutes, and anti-inflammatory painkillers. There are a few side-effects from the painkillers, but you will be on it short term. We can prevent these attacks from happening by changing your lifestyle habits. If weight is a factor we may want to lose weight to reduce the uric acid levels. Eating low protein foods, avoiding foods in high yeast extract and alcohol consumption, if any. I will want you to drink lots of fluid to stay hydrated and have your blood pressure checked once a year. If we don’t see any improvement on your gout attacks then I will need to prescribe you Allopurinol which is used to prevent gout attacks from happening. I’m glad you came to see me and get you back to feeling like yourself again because I know this is painful. I will want you to make an appointment to check in with me in the next 6 months to see if anything has changed. Otherwise, if it gets worse before that, then please call so we can do further testing and try medications, like the one I